


Star Wars: Rise of the Order

by BuffShipper



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ahch-To, Ajan Kloss, Alternate Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle of Exegol, Canon Rewrite, Canon Universe, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Ending Fix, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Force Healing, Force Lightning, Force Visions, Happy Ending, Lightsaber Battles, MacGuffins, Mild Sexual Content, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Mustafar (Star Wars), Not Canon Compliant, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Plothole Fill, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Sith Holocron, Space Battles, Stormtrooper Rebellion, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 45,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuffShipper/pseuds/BuffShipper
Summary: A "The Rise of Skywalker" divergent rewrite and fix-it fic.In a race against time, Rey and the Resistance must prepare for the final battle against the First Order and the Phantom Emperor Palpatine.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Han Solo, C-3PO & R2-D2 (Star Wars), Finn & Jannah (Star Wars), Finn/Rose Tico, Kaydel Ko Connix/Poe Dameron, Knights of Ren & Kylo Ren, Lando Calrissian & Zorii Bliss & Babu Frik, Larma D’Acy/Wrobie Tyce, Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Leia Organa & Rey, Maz Kanata & Leia Organa, Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Leia Organa, Rey & Luke Skywalker, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 74
Kudos: 82





	1. Prologue

_Sheev Palpatine's rise to power was glorious._

_The former Sith apprentice of Darth Plagueis had nestled himself nicely on his unsuspecting homeworld of Naboo, presenting himself as a kindly Senator of the Republic all the while orchestrating the Separatist War from both sides as Darth Sidious, insinuating himself as the Supreme Chancellor of the Senate, first by manipulating the embattled Queen Amidala of Naboo into pushing for the appointment and later increasing his "emergency powers" as the Separatist War intensified into the Clone Wars._

_With the help of his newly appointed apprentice, Darth Vader, aka the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine enacted Order 66 and henceforth they all but wiped out the Jedi Order._

_Admist the chaos, Palpatine reformed the Galactic Republic into the First Galactic Empire, and plunged the galaxy into tyranny for the next twenty years._

_Sheev Palpatine's downfall, however, was not nearly as glorious._

_At the height of the civil war between the Galactic Empire and the dogged Rebel Alliance, the final battle for the galaxy had become not only a martial one but a spiritual one, for at the center of the raging space battle orbiting the the forest moon of Endor was the newly constructed Death Star II, with the Emperor himself playing host to Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, for the soul of his estranged father, Darth Vader._

_When all had seemed lost for Luke Skywalker and his Rebel Alliance, the former Anakin Skywalker shed the mantle of Darth Vader and plunged his former master at the heart of the dying Death Star, effectively ending the reign of the Sith once and for all._

_For the time being._

_In the once thought unlikely event of his demise, Palpatine ensured the continuation of his Galactic Empire through The Contingency. By the end of the war, a cadre of Imperial officers, nobles, and technologists had fled into the Unknown Regions, led by Imperial-era leaders such as Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, General Brendol Hux, and the most loyal of all, General Enric Pryde._

_Palpatine meanwhile, had cheated death through the dark teachings of Darth Plagueis and the aid of his loyal army of cultists and soldiers, the Sith Eternal, on the secret world of Exegol_

_Snoke, an acolyte of the Dark Side and seeker of arcane lore, had discovered Exegol through his expedition to Fortress Vader. Claiming the throne as his own, Snoke was ultimately convinced to take on a ring imbued with Palpatine's Sith magic, becoming an unwitting puppet to the former Emperor, and henceforth took over the burgeoning First Order as its Supreme Leader, all the while Palpatine remained on Exegol to grow his fleet and recover his powers._

_Through age and his immense dark powers deteriorating his body, Palpatine sought a powerful, young body to inhabit, and reached out through the Force, finding the burgeoning life of Ben Solo, the last of the Skywalker bloodline. Through Snoke, he became the voice in the boy's head, twisting the boy to the Dark Side, grooming him to be the inheritor of the New Galactic Empire, eventually turning his uncle, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, against him for during one fateful night at the reformed Jedi Temple, once again ending the New Jedi Order before it had a chance to flourish, solidifying his turn to the Dark Side._

_Renamed Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, Palpatine/Snoke had an enforcer, and an eventual vessel to inhabit...but the Light was still strong in him, and that Light was to be extinguished._

_Manipulating the boy to kill his father, Han Solo, was thought to be the answer, but had proved to further conflict him._

_There had been an awakening in the Force, in the form of Rey, a scavenger girl from Jakku, and Kylo Ren had immediately formed a connection with the girl, becoming his equal in the Light, and his greatest temptation._

_Snoke had sought to strengthen their bond in order to lure the girl to him in an attempt to turn the former Ben Solo to the Light, and Snoke used her to divulge the location of her reluctant teacher, the self-exiled Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Casting her aside, Snoke urged Kylo Ren to complete his training and slay the girl, but Ren had done the unexpected and slew Snoke instead, taking the reigns of Supreme Leader for himself, fulfilling the last test of Palpatine's Sith Eternal, the test of the Rule of Two._

_As the new Supreme Leader grows the First Order, Palpatine prepares his next move..._


	2. Title Crawl

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

**STAR WARS**

**RISE OF THE ORDER**

Inspired by the heroic sacrifice of **JEDI MASTER LUKE SKYWALKER,** the galaxy heeds the desperate call of **THE RESISTANCE** , swelling their ranks in the battle against diabolical **FIRST ORDER**.

Meanwhile, **SUPREME LEADER KYLO REN** is plagued by visions sent by the late former **EMPEROR PALPATINE** , and he sets out in search for the phantom Emperor to eliminate any threat to his power. His bondmate in **THE** **FORCE** , the **JEDI REY** , shares his visions and trains for the coming battle as **GENERAL LEIA ORGANA** sends secret agents to investigate. 

The battle for the fate of the galaxy begins now...


	3. The Phantom Emperor

**Corvax Fen. Fortress Vader. Mustafar.**

Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation as the dropship carrying him and his Knights of Ren descended into the planet of Mustafar.

The mission was a source of irritation and disapproval to the First Order High Command, particularly the smug fool General Hux, who notably intoned that he was ' _chasing ghosts as the flames of rebellion burned through the galaxy'_ , but he didn't care, he diverted ships, sent out spies, and traced old records, all for this.

His arrival to Mustafar felt to him like a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting the planet his grandfather, the great Sith Lord Darth Vader, once resided.

Kylo Ren had expected to see a hellish landscape of lava and volcanoes, being that the planet had played host to the battle between his grandfather and Vader's former Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, a battle that Vader had lost and nearly killed him, necessitating the use of his ubiquitous life support suit, rendering him a cyborg for the rest of his life.

But, as Kylo had learned prior to the start of the mission, the ecosystem had begun to replenish itself due to the destruction of an ancient artifact called the Bright Star crystal a generation ago, which had turned the once lush and fertile landscape of Mustafar into a hellscape.

The dropship landed in a forest clearing and the Knights rushed from the dropship, fanning out in preparation for the potential battle ahead.

Kylo stepped out of the dropship and onto the planet's surface. The ground was ashy like snow, and the sky was still tinged a pale red, like a sunset.

The air was smoky, but breathable.Taking an anticipatory breath, the Master of the Knights of Ren ignited his lightsaber and stepped forward to battle.

***

The Alazmac of Winsit was a cult dedicated to protecting and reinvigorating the Corvax Fen and all of Mustafar to its former thriving state through the planting of forests of irontrees.

The fact that they felt they had to defend themselves against _him_ was insulting. Fortress Vader was his birthright. He should be welcomed.

However, the Alazmac were wholly unprepared to defend themselves from the onslaught of Kylo Ren and his fearsome Knights.

They massacred the cultists, the Knights mowing down whomever strayed into their path, and Kylo himself slammed, stabbed, and cut down all who opposed him, a black-clad bringer of death, until there was no one left.

With no one left to kill, and his uniform covered in mud, blood, and perspiration, Kylo strode through the fen, his lightsaber still ablaze, the spires of his grandfather's once great castle in sight beyond the smoking, burning irontrees. He soon came upon his quarry: the pyramidal Wayfinder that led to the Sith Planet of Exegol, contained in a stone vault.

Kylo held the device up close, examining the etchings in the glass that clarifyied into patterns, star charts, and alignment markers. 

Kylo's hand closed over the Wayfinder device, and he beckoned forth a Knight who had retrieved a case from the dropship.

His grandfather's burnt, warped, and ruined mask.

Kylo set it upon the vault where the Wayfinder had sat, and after a moment's silence, Kylo and the Knights of Ren left as quickly as they came.

*******

**Exegol**

Kylo Ren's TIE _Whisper_ raced through the tempestuous Unknown Regions of space to Exegol, led by the Wayfinder that he had plugged into his navicomputer.

Kylo's _Whisper_ was faster, larger, and more heavily armed than regulation TIEs, even more so than the state-of-the-art First Order TIEs, which had had been recently upgraded to be hyperspace-capable.

Modified to his specifications, his _Whisper_ was just as much an extension of himself as his lightsaber was. Even so, Kylo had to call upon his prodigious piloting acumen in conjunction with the Wayfinder to navigate safely through the treacherous Unknown Regions.

He had sent the Knights back to their mobile base of operations, The _Steadfast_ , with strict orders to wait and collect whatever data or transmissions he sent back from Exegol so they could analyze the information amongst themselves before making their next move and sharing it with the Supreme Council.

 _Exegol_ , the name that echoed in his mind. According to what he could decipher of the former Supreme Leader Snoke's encrypted private files, and his own tireless research into Sith lore, Exegol was a shadowy world populated by the Sith Eternal, true believers in the dark side of the Force. 

He had been plagued by dark visions, visions of destruction, of a dusty, lightning filled planet, visions of a massive inverted pyramid, and visions of the very device that was leading him to what he anticipated was the source of his visions.

Whomever, whatever it was, he would destroy them.

He entered the planet's stormy atmosphere and skimmed along the windy white desert plains until he came to the massive, inverted pyramid-like structure, a black leviathan licked by bolts of lightning.

The TIE landed, and Kylo deftly leapt to the surface, igniting his lightsaber, preparing to destroy whomever or whatever dared to threaten him and the power he held, and strided across the wasteland and into the Citadel, come what may.

It was dark, as it was to be expected, with a dim atmospheric lighting. He felt the floor descend beneath him, and he found he was on a floating elevator disk of sorts.

Below him, he saw massive statues that he recognized were of _Sith_ origin, confirming his suspicions of the nature of who or what was behind his visions.

Hooded figures shrunk away from him and into the shadows, but he paid them no mind. If they got in his way, he'd cut them down like he did the Alazmac.

"At last," A terrible voice boomed, immediately catching Kylo's attention. "Snoke trained you well."

Kylo slowly approached the source of the voice through the dimly lit cavern of the massive structure, gripping his lightsaber threateningly. "I killed Snoke. I’ll kill you."

"My boy...Snoke was but a figurehead, to rule in my place..to test you...and you...you have taken my Order to heights Snoke never could..." the voice replied.

The source of the voice came into full view. A pale white ghoul of what once was a man, draped in jet black robes, his body attached to a great machine of wires and tubing, the face wrinkled, eyes clouded over, lips lined black, fingers wasting away.

The being that was once Sheev Palpatine, alias Darth Sidious, Emperor of the Galactic Empire and Dark Lord of the Sith, was now reduced to this vegetative state, being attended to by cloaked servants and medical droids.

It would almost be pathetic to an uneducated observer, but Kylo knew of and could feel his immense power, and thus his guard never wavered as he raised his blazing crimson blade to the ghoulish man.

"Do you know who I am?" Palpatine asked, undaunted by the threat of the lightsaber.

“I know you built the First Order," Kylo replied, his grip on his lightsaber tightening. "That I will not be your servant as Snoke was.”

The phantom cackled under his draping robes, as if he knew something the other man didn't. "The First Order was just the beginning...I will give you so much more."

 **"** You’ll die first," Kylo retorted, his patience wearing thin of the creature's games.

 **"** I have died before," Palpatine replied mirthlessly. "The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."

 **"** What could you give me?" Kylo asked, intrigued.

"Everything. A new empire," Palpatine offered, and with that he raised his ruined hands to the sky and the vast roof of the enormous structure opened, revealing the dark, lightning filled atmosphere. Rows and rows of gigantic star destroyers ascended from the barren white desert, joined by an obelisk-like navigation tower that would coordinate their final ascension, unfurling like a metal flower, exposing it's petal-like antennae to the violent, stormy sky.

"For a generation, my disciples have labored,” Palpatine explained, his weak voice growing stronger. “They’ve built a fleet that will bring an end to the galactic rebellion once and for all!”

Kylo was not a man easily impressed, but even he was in awe of the sight of Palpatine's armada, perhaps the largest fleet the galaxy had ever known.

"The might of the Final Order will soon be ready. It will be yours if you do as I ask," boomed Palpatine over the thunderclaps and roaring wind.

"What do you ask?" Kylo asked breathlessly, his attention split between the armada above and phantom below.

"Destroy the last Jedi, and extinguish the Light. Then, and only then can you do what your grandfather, Vader, could not and rule the galaxy as the new Emperor!" Palpatine cackled, gesturing to a great stylized Sith throne, stone with enormous horn-like spires jutting out from the sides, furthering Kylo's temptation.

"You must think me a fool," Kylo accused, looking away from the Sith throne. "I know the deception of the Sith. No Sith willingly gives up a throne."

"My end is near...I simply wish to pass on my Empire to a worthy successor...you must act now, before my final breath!" Palpatine beseeched. "It is your destiny! I have foreseen it!"

Kylo sensed deception in the Machiavellian former emperor, but also truth. He pressed him further before making his decision.

"And if I don't?" Kylo challenged.

"The First Order will fall. And you will die.” Palpatine warned. “You have already sensed this."

Kylo Ren considered, his dark eyes narrowing. Finally, he lowered his lightsaber.

"It will be done."


	4. Space Chase

**_Millenium Falcon_. Deep Space.**

"It's not that I don't trust her, it's that I don't understand why we're going on this wild bantha chase over a bunch of visions." Poe Dameron expained, drumming his fingers on the dejarik game emitter as he patiently waited for the Wookie Chewbacca to make a move.

"We're not just talking about Rey here, Poe." Finn countered, as he watched the holographic figures on the dejarik board intently. "General Leia...Maz Kanata...they all felt something."

"Yeah, well...I still have a bad feeling about this," Poe sighed. "You, uh, gonna make a move there, Chewie?"

Chewbacca chuckled in his odd animalistic way, behind his gigantic, hairy visage a wise and formidable warrior.

"He can’t beat us every time,” Finn said.

“And yet, he seems to,” Poe grumbled.

Finn’s eyes narrowed. “How does he do it?”

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that he was cheating," accused Poe.

Chewie roared, baring his teeth at the ace pilot.

"Hey hey! Just kidding, buddy!" Poe exclaimed, raising his hands in apology at the Wookie. 

Finn smiled, shaking his head. It was moments like this that he felt like he belonged. Having long forgotten his true name, the only purpose he ever had prior to meeting Poe was as a loyal stormtrooper to the First Order as FN-2187. When he had decided to rebel against the First Order by refusing to massacre a village on Jakku, and solidified it by rescuing the hotshot ace pilot of the Resistance from the First Order ship he was imprisoned on. In that short amount of time, FN-2187 and Poe Dameron became best friends, with Poe even giving him his chosen name.

Just then, a loud alarm broke Finn out of his reverie and the three stood up from their game.

"Hyperspace alarm," grunted Poe as they made their way to the bridge.

"It looks like you win this round...again," Finn grumbled to Chewbacca. 

Chewie chuckled smugly and gestured for Finn to walk ahead of him.

The _Millennium Falcon_ exited hyperspace as the three sat down and made their way to the Sinta Glacier Colony, where they were to rendezvous with their informant contact, an Ovissian named Boolio, a mine overseer who’d been siphoning surplus minerals to Resistance-friendly transports for months. Finn himself had picked up shipments twice.

The _Falcon_ docked, and the top hatch unlatched, letting in a wash of cold, moist air as Finn and Poe greeted their greenish-yellow faced informant and procured the holodisk containing the top secret First Order intelligence.

Boolio, grinning horn-to-horn, handed the holodisk to Finn who promptly handed it to Poe so he could store it in a secure location for the return trip. They were likely being followed, so little time could be afforded to analyzing the contents of the holodisk, let alone the transfer of the holodisk itself.

"Hey," Finn addressed Boolio before the hatch closed. "Thanks for this. How can we ever repay you?"

"Just win," Boolio replied before the closing _Falcon_ hatch cut him off from view.

"Alright buddy. No time to waste." Poe announced, hurrying to the controls. "We got TIEs on our six. You got the cannons?"

"Really?! Already?!" Finn cried incredulously as he clambered into the cannon pod seat as Poe and Chewbacca fastened themselves into the pilot's seats.

The TIEs came roaring in behind them as the _Falcon_ raced off, Finn firing volleys at them, hitting one as the others maneuvered away to avoid the cannon fire and the explosion of their comrade's TIE.

"I can't shake them!" Finn shouted as the _Falcon_ dodged and weaved in order to avoid the return fire of the TIEs.

"I think desperate times call for desperate times call for desperate measures!" Replied Poe. "Hold on, buddy! Chewie?"

"What're you-" yelled Finn as the _Falcon_ jumped to hyperspace... and nearly into the gaping mouth of a gigantic beast in the Megafauna Chasm of the Typhonic Nebula. 

Chewbacca roared in surprise, frantically working the controls to help coordinate the next jump and keep the _Falcon_ in one piece.

In his nearly three hundred years of life, Chewbacca had seen a great many things and had flown with a great many pilots, but few were as reckless as Poe Dameron, and that included the late Han Solo, the former owner of the _Falcon_ and one of Chewie's dearest friends, and that was saying something.

"Hold on!" Poe shouted as the jumped to hyperspace again.

"HYPERSPACE SKIPPING?! ARE YOU KRIFFING KIDDING ME?!" shrieked Finn from the cannon pod, his dark skin growing red from panic.

"Okay...I think we shook them..." Poe sighed as the _Falcon_ jumped to the Mirror Spires of Ivexa.

Finn was just about to lay into Poe when the pursuing TIEs exited hyperspace behind them.

"What? They're still coming? Alright. Hold on!" Poe announced.

"DON'T DO IT AGAIN!!!" Finn screeched as the _Falcon_ skipped again, this time to the Crystal Chaos of Cardovyte. A TIE slammed into a crystal wall adjacent to them.

"Well buddy, it's quite simple. You just plug in the coordinates and you-" Poe explained. 

"I DON'T CARE HOW IT WORKS!! I JUST DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!" Finn roared as the Falcon cleared the Crystal Chaos and jumped to lightspeed again. "AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!"

"Relax, relax. We lost them," Poe announced. "We're home free, buddy!"

Chewbacca grumbled in gratitude, leaning back in his seat.

Finn stumbled jelly-legged to the bridge, slumping into a chair. "Poe."

"Yeah, buddy?" replied Poe as they found their bearings.

"If you ever, EVER, do that again, I will throw you out of the nearest airlock, and Chewie here will help me. Right, Chewie?" Finn warned.

Chewbacca roared his agreement, and the three burst out laughing as they made their way back to the Resistance base at Ajan Kloss, thanking the Force for their good fortune.


	5. Connected

**Resistance HQ. Ajan Kloss.**

"I am one with the Force, the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, the Force is with me. I am one with the Force..." This was the mantra that Rey repeated to herself as she sought to connect deeper into the Force, to find the answers she sought. She had received flashes of dark, disturbing visions, images of places and devices that she had never been or have seen before. All she knew was that Ben...Kylo Ren was involved, and that disturbed her even further.

Even after all these months, on opposite sides of the war, Rey still found herself thinking of him, dreaming about him, worrying about him. At times she'd find herself in the same room as him, and the feelings she tried to keep under the surface would boil over and before she could do anything about them...he'd vanish.

Rey sighed. Meditation was a bust. It was always a bust. She couldn't focus. She was never at peace and in tune with the Force enough to focus. 

Opening her eyes and uncrossing her legs, Rey unhooked the her lightsaber from her belt and decided to run the training course that she had set up in the expansive forest terrain of Ajan Koss.

BB-8 beeped in curiosity at her feet. Rey smiled at her little droid companion. The orange and white ball shaped droid had been quite taken to her ever since she had rescued it on Jakku over a year ago, and had frequently accompanied her as she trained and meditated, beeping encouragement at her.

"Ready to run the course with me, BB-8?" Rey asked affectionately.

The droid beeped an affirmative, and Rey activated her lightsaber and did a couple of warmup twirls with it. She had managed to repair it with help from the sacred Jedi texts that she took from Ahch-To, though the event that split the lightsaber still remains in her mind.

Rey learned a lot about lightsabers by reforging the Skywalker saber, and was confident in her repair job on it, but she longed to forge one of her own from scratch, maybe one like her old quarterstaff, the weapon that she still felt most familiar with. Two business ends, perhaps with a hinge in the middle for portability. Definitely a saber without the emotional baggage the Skywalker one carried.

Activating the training ball from her pack and slinging her staff that had been leaning on a nearby tree over her shoulder, Rey shoved aside the memory of her and Kylo's Force tug-of-war over the saber, instead focusing on trying to avoid the energy bolts it shot at her, on deflection...on trying to hit the damn thing.

She'd run miles over the terrain, leaping over crevasses and up trees, parkouring over obstacles to keep herself sharp.

Physical training had been something she excelled at, it was natural for her. She had been defending herself in solitude for most of her life in the no man's land of Jakku. The physicality and repetition of it had been a way to focus her energies in the way she couldn't with meditation, and provided a welcome distraction from her conflicted thoughts.

***

**Kylo Ren's quarters. The Steadfast. Deep Space.**

Kylo Ren stood before his old helmet, reforged from the shattered pieces painstakingly scavenged from the wreck of the _Supremacy_ , set on an obsidian pillar that the fire-warped mask of his grandfather, Darth Vader used to be.

He had originally worn the helmet as an homage to Vader. He examined the red, cracked welding of the helmet, remembering the feeling in his fist when he first destroyed it in a rage..." _you're just a child in a mask_ "...following an admonishment from his slain former master.

He had always revered Vader, an indomitable legacy to aspire to, and in becoming Supreme Leader, Kylo had felt that he had surpassed much of his grandfather's legacy, spending much of the past year actively pursuing a legacy of his own, building upon the crumbling foundations of the past.

And yet, despite his accomplishments, Kylo had still felt so much so like that 'child in a mask' --with his agonizing pull towards the Light-- and thus felt as though he still had growing to do in the Dark Side before he could reclaim his mask, his _crown_ , completely.

Troubling him further still was the reemergence of Palpatine, casting him under the shadow of his grandfather's legacy yet again: the Sith.

Palpatine surely planned on using him as a pawn in his silly eternal war with the Jedi, just as he used his grandfather. But Kylo would not allow himself to be used as Vader had: he had sacrificed and suffered far too much to be subservient. Kylo knew that Palpatine must be eliminated for him to become establish his new Galactic Order, beyond the binary notions of the Jedi and the Sith, Republic and Empire.

But he could not do it alone. He knew Palpatine was just short of incapacitated in his current state, but his strength in the Force remained immeasurable and thus was not to be underestimated. He needed help, and he knew just the person who could, though convincing her would be quite the undertaking.

His thoughts drifted to the person in question. _Her_.

Not a day has gone by that he hasn't thought of her or dreamed of her, nor has he stopped hunting her. The Force would connect them every so often, but those connections were brief and few and far between.

He had been unsure of what to make of the connections: when she had left him on _The Supremacy_ , rage had filled his heart and clouded his mind, and he regarded the connection as a curse. He had found himself just short wishing for her death, for a part of him knew that such a thought was unbearable.

In the short span of time they were united nearly a year ago, they were unstoppable. Two halves made whole. Complete.

Her. The scavenger. The last Jedi.

***** Ajan Kloss/Kylo Ren's quarters**

" _Rey..."_

Rey felt the familiar tingle at the base of her head and startled at the sudden sound of his voice, and the vision that followed, coming in flashes, vivid as if she was experiencing them for the first time-

_FLASH!_

_"I never felt so alone," Rey sobbed._

" _You're not alone." Kylo assured._

_"Neither are you." Rey replied_

_They sat facing each_ _other in the firefight, hands outstretched, ready to touch..._

_FLASH!_

_"You'll be the one to turn."_

_They stood back to back, united against the red tide of the Praetorian Guard_

FLASH!

_"Rey...I want you to join me." Kylo pleaded, his hand outstretched in supplication, waiting for her to take it. "Please."_

_FLASH!_

_A ghoulish man. Thousands of robed cultists. A throne. An endless fleet of star destroyers. A blinding beam of light. A deafening explosion._

_FLASH!_

-paying for it with an energy bolt from the ball to the shoulder. Angry, she flung her lightsaber at the ball, which it dodged, cutting down a tree. With a lightning quick movement, Rey impaled the ball with her staff and used the Force to call the lightsaber back into her hand.

The tree bisected from the saber crashed upon BB-8, who squealed in surprise as Rey rushed to rescue it.

"Oh BB-8," she sighed, picking leaves from his chassis. "What am I going to do?"

BB-8 beeped in concern, rolling away from the tree and in front of her.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Rey replied, standing up, brushing her pants off. "I do need a break. Let's go back to base and get you fixed up."


	6. Preparing for Battle

Rey and BB-8 had scarcely made it out of the forest when the _Millennium Falcon_ soared through the atmosphere and over the trees, landing with a groan in a clearing near the base.

Their base on Ajan Kloss was barely cobbled together. Networks of computer consoles sat outside, exposed to the elements. A massive cave provided some shelter, and an old rebel blockade runner called the _Tantive IV_ —currently grounded while awaiting replacement parts—served as command quarters and a communications center for the Resistance leaders.

Rey and BB-8 rushed over to greet her friends, but Poe Dameron was in no mood for pleasantries.

"Really could have used your help out there, Rey," Poe growled as he, Finn and Chewbacca disembarked the damaged freighter. 

Rey sighed. Poe was always trying to get Rey on more missions as of late, as if her commitment to Jedi training made her any less committed to the Resistance cause. She could understand his concerns and frustrations, but he could never understand the Dark shroud that hung over the Force and how important it was that she was ready to face it as the sole Force sensitive in the Resistance.

"How did it go?" Rey asked, concerned

"Really bad actually. Really bad," Poe replied, gesturing to the smoking hull of the _Falcon_ , and the fires being attended to by rushing Resistance technicians. 

**"** The _Falcon_!" Rey cried in exasperation.

Poe rolled his eyes at her until BB-8 rolled out from behind her, its chassis still bearing the damage from the falling tree.

"What did you do to BB-8?" accused Poe, gesturing to him.

Rey put her hand on her hips, gesturing to the _Falcon_ in response. "What did you do the _Falcon_?"

"The _Falcon_ ’s in a lot better shape than he is!" retorted Poe, gesticulating wildly between the _Falcon_ and BB-8.

"BB8 is not on fire," Rey reasoned.

"What’s left of him isn’t on fire," Poe shot back.

"Tell me what happened," Rey demanded.

"You tell me first," Poe replied.

"Hey hey hey! Alright guys!" Finn interrupted. "The First Order intel is being decoded as we speak."

Finn turned to Poe. "Which means that you'll be needed for debriefing."

Poe nodded, and gave Rey a dirty look as he walked away.

 **"** I'm sorry about him. Believe me, it was a rough trip. He'll get over it," Finn said once Poe was out of earshot.

"I bet," Rey shrugged. "I suppose we're all on edge."

"Yeah," sighed Finn. "Sleeping better?"

"Eh," Rey replied.

"I bet we'll be more on edge once we find out what the hell is going on," Finn predicted, trudging up to the base with Rey.

****

The Resistance quickly convened in their ranshack "command center" as word of the _Falcon's_ return spread, and quiet fell over the crowd as Leia, Poe, and Rose Tico held court.

The diminutive alien Maz Kanata stood by Leia. Ancient by well over a thousand years, "the pirate queen's" knowledge of the Force was vast, and with the ever growing spectre of the Dark Side, she had decided to leave her smuggler's den of a castle on the planet of Takadona to officially join the Resistance, despite her millennia long stance of neutrality.

"We’ve decoded the intel from the First Order spy, and it confirms the worst," Poe announced. "The former Emperor Palpatine has indeed returned."

A collective gasp filled the base. Many among the Resistance weren't even alive long enough to remember Palpatine during the heights of his power, but his exploits have remained in infamy, and his tyrannical legacy had become the First Order.

The Emperor was very much an urban legend on Jakku when Rey was growing up. Long before her time, there were rumors that he had stationed several secret laboratories hidden deep in the mountains and deserts, and of course it was common knowledge that the last battle of the Galactic Civil War was fought on Jakku, five years after the Emperor's now 'supposed' death.

Leis shared a glance with Maz: their deepest fears and suspicions were confirmed.

Poe gestured for Rose to take over. She nodded and began.

"Somehow...he’s been planning his revenge. His followers have been building something for years. The largest fleet the galaxy has ever known. He calls it the Final Order. Palpatine and his fleet have been hiding in the Unknown Regions, on a world called Exegol. It's only a matter of time before he strikes. Hours. Days. Weeks."

"And with Kylo Ren out there...whether or not he sees Palpatine as a threat or an ally...it still puts us in a precarious position," continued Poe.

"Be-Kylo Ren, would not give up his power easily," Rey reasoned. "He'll do anything to hold onto it." 

Her thoughts shifted back to when Kylo cut Snoke in half. She thought it was to save her...maybe it was...but either way it was a power grab. Rey met Leia's eyes.

"What can you tell us about Exegol?" Leia asked, shifting the subject away from Kylo. Rey had confided in her that her son was the one to murder Snoke. Palpatine was an enemy to him as much as much as the Resistance was to the First Order. 

**"** Exegol does not appear on any star chart." Threepio explained. "But legends describe it as a hidden world of the Sith."

"So...Palpatine’s been out there all this time...just pulling the strings." Poe sighed in disbelief.

"Always, in the shadows from the very beginning." Leia confirmed. "If we want to stop him, we must find him. We must find Exegol."

"Is that all?” Rey asked. Now that she had a source for her nightmares and visions, she was raring to go and face them.

Rose shook her head. "Well that's the problem. There was more to the message, but it was so heavily encrypted, and in the Old Sith language... We couldn't crack it. I couldn't crack it, Beaumont couldn't crack it. The droids were forbidden by programming to translate it."

"So what the hell do we do?" Finn interjected.

"Well...I have an old contact." Leia replied, pacing about before she turned to address the facing the troops. "He's got somebody on his team. One of the best in the entire galaxy. Slicer, codebreaker, droidsmith. You name it."

"Oh great. Another 'Master Codebreaker' mission," Finn rolled his eyes. He and Rose exchanged a look and stifled a nervous giggle.

"Where's the planet?" Rey asked.

"Pasaana." Leia sighed.

"Pasaana?" Finn asked.

Leia nodded and continued. "Our contact has business to manage and has agreed to rendezvous there."

"Great," Rey said, to the surprise of everyone. "When can I go?"

"What?" Finn asked incredulously. "You're not going alone!"

"We’re going with you," Poe announced, striding towards where Rey was sitting.

Rey was about to object when Poe cut her off with a gesture, much to her annoyance.

 **"** I need to go alone," Rey pressed.

Finn nodded. "Yeah, alone with friends."

 **"** It’s too dangerous, Finn." Rey reasoned. "It's the Sith and the Dark Side and nothing you guys have ever prepared for."

Finn shook his head. "We go together."

Chewie roared in support and BB-8 beeped at Rey's feet.

 **"** I wholeheartedly agree," Threepio chimed in.

Rey smiled.

"Then it's decided. Rey, Poe, Finn, and Chewbacca will go to Pasaana as soon as repairs are done on the _Falcon_ ," Leia ordered, sparing a knowing glance at Poe with 'repairs'. "You'll of course need a protocol droid and an astromech, so you'll be joined by Threepio and BB-8."

"As soon as that message is cracked, we'll need you to transmit whatever information you find to me and my team, so we can better prepare our allies." Rose instructed. 

“If this fleet launches, freedom dies in the galaxy,” Maz Kanata spoke up, her gentle, wise voice commanding attention and authority despite her small stature. When she spoke, one listened. "Every moment counts...everything we’ve fought for is at stake.”

Leia nodded. "Godspeed, and may the Force be with you."

***

Hours later, the six began to prepare for the journey, saying their goodbyes as the Falcon prepared for takeoff. 

"Chewie, did you get that compressor fixed?" Poe shouted into the Falcon. 

Chewbacca growled a response, which satisfied Poe enough to begin loading supplies on the freighter.

Finn had wanted Rose to go on this mission with him just as they had done the year before, but her and engineering expertise was needed to study the holovid diagrams of Imperial Star Destroyers provided from the holodisk, and formulate ways to counter the combined fleets once the rest of the holodisk was decrypted and the way to Exegol was provided.

Rey watched as Finn and Rose shared a quiet moment of goodbye together. They shared a tender kiss and touched foreheads, and Rey had to look away, an odd, indescribable feeling of longing overcoming her.

Her gaze brought her to Leia, who was overseeing their departure.

Leia brought her in for a warm hug, with Rey having to stoop to embrace the much shorter woman.

"Remember what I said, Rey," Leia whispered. "Do what you can for him, but stay true to yourself. He'll only find his way back if he chooses to."

Rey bit her lip. She had barely mentioned _him_ since Crait, but Leia could see right through her. She knew. And she hoped.

Rey felt tears well up in her eyes, but she swallowed them down and Rey tightened her embrace. 

"May the Force be with you," Leia began, taking Rey's face in her hands.

"Always," finished Rey, and the two exchanged a meaningful look before Rey nodded and set off towards the Falcon, walking past C-3P0, who was saying goodbye to his long time astromech companion, R2-D2. BB-8 rolled up and exchanged beeps of goodbye with his fellow astromech.

Rey nodded to the three and waved to Artoo, and the astromech beeped its final goodbye as her, Threepio, and BB-8 made their way up the ramp, closing it behind them as they went to the bridge, and the _Millenium Falcon_ departed the Ajan Kloss sky, leaping to hyperspace on the way to Pasaana.


	7. The Supreme Council

_**The Steadfast.** _ **Deep Space.**

Flanked by the Knights of Ren, Kylo Ren imperiously strode down the twisting corridors of _The Steadfast_ to meet with the Supreme Council. He had just received word of the TIE chase of his father's dilapidated Corellian freighter near the Sinta Glacier Colony, meaning that the bait he set for Rey had been received, and thus is it was time to move forward with the next step in his plan for galactic domination. She would crawl out of her hiding hole, half cocked, lightsaber drawn, and she would lead him right to her, and then she would be his.

He provided her with just enough information to get her going and had so heavily encrypted the rest that she would have to seek out only the most skilled codebreakers of the underworld. If his expectations were correct, she would also string along her Resistance friends on her futile mission, and provide the First Order with not only prisoners, but a lead to the underground network of pirates, scoundrels, and slicers that interfered with and undermined the authority of his growing empire.

So what if the Resistance took advantage of the information he provided them? With his own fleet he could wipe them out, and when the Final Order fleet was added to his, their annihilation would be a foregone conclusion.

They would marvel at the technology of his new armada, realizing just how _obsolete_ they are, and spend the rest of their hours counting the moments until it was brought to bear on _them_. 

With Rey at his side and with the Resistance and their unscrupulous allies eliminated, the First Order would be unstoppable.

The Supreme Council of course, knew nothing of this: they knew only what he allowed them to know, and that was the way he liked to keep it.

Since he has become Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo has grown to loathe these type of meetings, the politicking, power grabs, the never ending game of oneupsmanship these petty people play. He'd much prefer to fill his roundtable with his Knights, but the truth of the matter was that the Order simply could not run without these people.

The atmosphere of the chambers changed when Kylo and his Knights of Ren entered, the small talk and joking was over, replaced by nervous muttering and fearful staring.

"As you know," Kylo began, his deep voice demanding quiet from the gaggle of backstabbers before him. "I have negotiated an alliance with the _former_ Emperor Palpatine. The fleet he manufactured on Exegol will be added to ours, and soon the First Order will finally become a true empire."

"Very good, Supreme Leader. The assimilation of the Sith fleet within our ranks will increase our resources astronomically," praised Allegiant General Pryde. "I see this as a sure victory for the Order. It will correct the error of Starkiller Base."

Kylo's eyes narrowed as he acknowledged Pryde's support. Pryde was an elder statesman of the First Order, having served under Palpatine during the days of the Galactic Empire. Pryde was one of the few officers on the Council who never seemed to be afraid of him, which didn’t sit well at all. Kylo would have gotten rid of Pryde himself if the general wasn't so competent. His support regarding Palpatine's involvement was unsurprising, and thus would require a closer eye.

Kylo hid a grin as he watched the ginger-haired Armitage Hux squirm. Following the loss of Captain Phasma on _The_ _Supremacy_ at the hands of the traitor FN-2187, the Stormtrooper Corps. were in disarray, with many increasing cases of rebellion and defection. With General Hux in charge of the program, he was held accountable. When Enric Pryde was brought in from the Unknown Regions to bolster the First Order forces to compensate for the defections, he was made Allegiant General and Hux was demoted.

"The 'error' of Starkiller Base, General?" General Hux spoke up indignantly. "Need I remind you that 'the error' obliterated the entire Hosnian system and the New Republic? As I destroyed solar systems, what, pray tell, were you doing as you hid in the Unknown Regions?"

Of course, even with his legs cut out from under him, Hux was as cunning as ever, and his tongue just as sharp. Had he retained the power he had when Snoke was Supreme Leader, he surely would have used it against him in some treacherous way. Demoting him was just as much about self-preservation as humiliation. 

It was petty of Kylo, perhaps, but keeping his officers at odds with each other kept them from uniting against him.

Pryde was just about to angrily retort when Kylo silenced the room with a raised hand. With Kylo's penchant for using that very hand to violently strangle subordinates with the Force, even a simple movement was a threat.

"If I may, sir-" a general named Quinn began.

"You may..." Kylo replied through gritted teeth. Quinn was old enough to have been a junior officer in the Empire, and had little patience for anything that even hinted at religion or mysticism. Quinn made it a point to voice his opinions on the matter when the subject arose, much to Kylo's annoyance, only getting away with it by his tenure.

"How are you so sure that the this fleet will not turn on us? What does Palpatine, and his cult of conjurers and soothsayers-ACK!!!"

"Force, General Quinn," Kylo replied, crushing the general's windpipe, the man's insolence vexing him for the last time. "I will _crush_ any world that defies the First Order, and that includes the Sith world!"

Kylo twitched his hand and Quinn shot up to the ceiling, his body contorting as Kylo balled his fist and squeezed through the Force. A sickening crunch, and Quinn was no more.

"Any more questions?" Kylo asked as Quinn's lifeless body fell to the table with a crashing thud.

Wordlessly, the Council shook their heads 'no.'

"Then this meeting is adjourned," Kylo hissed.

As the Supreme Council scrambled to leave, Kylo turned to his Knights.

"The bait is set," Kylo declared "Prepare the hunt for the scavenger. She will soon be mine."


	8. Pasaana

**The Forbidden Valley. Pasaana.**

The _Millennium Falcon_ made it's way through the Pasaana atmosphere and to the desert below to a smooth landing, guided by the expert flying of Poe Dameron and Chewbacca.

"We're here, folks," Poe announced, switching off the Falcon. "Now to find our contact and crack this egg."

Finn peered out the window, shaking his head. "Another desert. I hate deserts."

Rey stood up from her seat, beckoning BB-8 to her. "Tell me about it."

"Deserts are old hat for me, I'm afraid," Threepio commented. "I'm not quite fond of it myself. It gets everywhere. It's coarse, rough, irritating..."

"You're coarse, rough, and irritating," Poe teased.

"I beg your pardon?" Threepio replied.

Chewie chuckled as the exited down the ramp of the _Falcon_ and into the dry heat of the desert.

By virtue of spending most of her life in the desert, Rey quickly adjusted and maneuvered through the sand dunes. Begrudgingly, her human, droid, and Wookie companions followed.

Rey heard something. She held out her hand to halt her friends. "I hear-"

"A celebration?" Finn asked, incredulous.

They rushed over the dunes, and in the distance they came upon a festival, complete with music and streamers and banners of every color.

"Oh, what a delight!" Threepio explained. "This must be the native Aki-Aki. We must have happened upon their Festival of the Ancestors. It only happens every forty-two years."

"Yeah, what a delight," snarked Poe as they trudged down the sand dune. "This crowd will make finding our contact that much harder."

Despite their anxieties, the celebratory atmosphere of the Festival was infectious, and it was difficult not to get swept up in it. Even the mission-focused Poe couldn't help but crack a smile as he engaged with the Aki-Aki. 

The Aki-Aki were an odd folk, the adults short, somewhat humanoid save for the twin elephantine trunks that protruded from their face. Their young were much more humanoid, with child-like faces, for their twin trunks have not yet developed.

Rey looked on in amusement as BB-8 entertained a group of younglings. Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt a tug on her arm.

It was a juvenile Aki-Aki girl, greeting her in a language Rey didn't understand.

"She is saying, “Welcome,” Threepio translated, coming to Rey's side, the sun reflecting brightly off his golden chassis.

The girl produced a beaded necklace for Rey, offering it as a gift. Rey nodded, and let her place the necklace around her neck, speaking her language as she did it.

"Her name is Nyambee Geema," Threepio translated again.

"That’s an excellent name." Rey smiled, stooping low to reach eye level with the young Aki-Aki girl. "I’m Rey."

Nyambee excitedly spoke again, this time expressing her curiosity of what Rey's family name was.

Rey sighed. She honestly hadn't given it much thought. She wasn't even completely sure 'Rey' was her real name. It was just the only name she knew.

"I don’t have one," she finally replied. "I’m just Rey."

Nyambee looked at her quizzically, and then took Threepio by the arm to show the protocol droid around the festival.

Rey watched as Threepio humored the girl, and absentmindedly stroked the beads of her necklace as Nyambee led him to a festival stand.

A tingle at the base of her neck broke her out her reverie, and she turned to face Kylo Ren from across the bond.

"That necklace suits you, Rey," Kylo complimented.

"I do like to change my look up at least once in a while," Rey replied, tilting her head at Kylo.

Kylo paused, and then took a breath. "Palpatine wants you dead."

"Serving another master?" Rey questioned, a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

Kylo shook his head, a ghost of a grin on his pale face. "No. I have other plans."

Rey arched her eyebrows. "Can't imagine what those plans would be."

"You can’t hide, Rey. Not from me," Kylo warned. 

"I think I've done a good job so far, despite your best efforts. What do you think is going to happen when you find me?" Rey taunted.

"I offered my hand to you before. This time you'll take it," Kylo replied, moving so close to Rey that she could practically feel his breath through the bond.

Rey looked him dead in the eye, unwavering. "We’ll see."

To Rey's surprise, Kylo suddenly reached out and grabbed the necklace Nyambee gave Rey, snatching it off her neck in one swift motion.

Rey was left in shock, her hand resting over her fast beating heart in place of the necklace.

She swallowed. He'll be coming for her soon. 

***

From across the bond, Kylo Ren held the necklace in his fist. He could feel the heat from her body still fresh on the necklace. He brought it to his face and inhaled, savoring its scent.

"I _will_ find you, Rey," Kylo vowed, hurrying out of his chambers to have the necklace analyzed.

***

Rey hurried through the crowd of Aki-Aki to gather her friends, finding Finn first.

"We have to get going. Now," Rey said to Finn, grabbing him by the arm.

"What's up?" Finn asked, concerned.

Rey pulled him behind a display of fruit. A pair of stormtroopers pulled up from the desert on their speeders, making their way to the festival, blasters at the ready.

"Damn it," Finn swore. "This is bad. Come on."

The pair ducked through the crowd, finding the rest of the group.

"Where've you been?" Poe asked.

"No time," Rey snapped, gesturing to the stormtroopers integrating into the festival crowd . "Troopers."

"Oh dear," Threepio muttered.

"How'd they find us all the way out here?" Poe grumbled, looking for an escape route.

Poe turned, and a mysterious masked man frantically gestured for them to follow him.

"C'mon!" the mystery man beckoned, leading them to a supply tent. "In here!"

The group followed the man into the tent, and the mystery man began to take off his mask.

"You must be Leia's contact," Poe pointed out. "How did you find us?"

"Wookies stand out in a crowd," the man replied, taking off his disguise and revealing himself to be none other than Lando Calrissian, former General of the Rebellion.

Chewie greeted him, and gave the man a quick hug.

His physical prime was far behind him, but he had a leonine strength about him, and still maintained the regal composure and appearance he had in his youth.

"You're Lando Calrissian!" Poe exclaimed.

Lando smiled and nodded.

"So General, can you tell us why we're here?" Poe asked.

"Skip the General part, kid. My rebel days are over," Lando replied, taking out a holographic emitter. "These days I'm underground. Left Bespin to look for my daughter, kidnapped by the First Order, no doubt for their stormtrooper program..."

A shadow passed over Finn's face. He barely remembered anything of his childhood, all he had known prior to the Resistance was the First Order. He could only imagine what Calrissian was going through.

Lando pushed a button on his emitter and a holographic image of a humanoid looking alien projected into view.

"Ochi. A bounty hunter for the First Order." Lando spat. "Child snatcher. Finally traced him here after all these years. Was gonna take care of him myself...but only found his ship."

Lando took a deep breath and composed himself. "And then the princess called and asked for a favor, and I could never say no to her."

"She says you know somebody," Poe asked.

Lando peeked outside. More stormtroopers gathered. "My associate. Babu Frik. If it's tech, he's your mech, I like to say."

"So you can help?" Rey asked. She was getting anxious. She could feel the tension in the Force.

"This place is beginning to crawl with bucket heads. I was going to just stay here and take you to my ship and simply send the data to Babu but there's no way we can get out of here and to my ship without becoming bantha fodder."

"So..." Poe pressed.

"So Plan B. You shake these guys and meet me at my place at Kimiji. I'll be waiting," Lando replied, handing Poe a datacard.

"Just like that, Calrissian?" Rey hissed.

Lando shrugged as he backed out of the group's hiding place. "I ain't getting mixed up a firefight with the First Order, lady. I told you: my rebel days are over."

"Can you believe him?" Rey growled as Lando disappeared from sight.

"No time for that right now," Poe replied, peeking out of the tent. First Order TIE fighters and dropships raced overhead, scanning for any signs of the Resistance.

"Right there!" Poe exclaimed, pointing at a pair of skiff speeders carrying supplies. "Should be fast enough to make our getaway."

"It's the best we got," Rey agreed. "Let's go!"

The Aki-Aki merchants protested loudly as the group commandeered their speeders, but as they raced away, there wasn't much that could be done. They motioned to appeal to the incoming pair of treadspeeders, mounted with two stormtroopers each, but the merchants were left in the dust as the stormtroopers blew past them.

With Threepio, Finn, and Poe in one, and Rey, Chewbacca and BB8 in the other, they barely outraced the advancing treadspeeders, which popped up on their front wheels to launch their passengers, who had jetpacks, to the surprise of the Resistance.

"Oh! They fly now?!" exclaimed Threepio as the jet troopers advanced towards them.

"Aw man! Why didn't they have that when I was there?!" yelled Finn.

"I like to do my flying from inside the cockpit, thank you!" Poe yelled back.

"Would you boys shut up and just shoot something?!" Rey snapped, aiming her blaster at the incoming jet troopers, hitting one and missing the other

"They keep coming!" Poe yelled, shooting at and missing the jet trooper.

"BB8?" Rey yelled to the droid, who was wrapped in netting. The droid produced a small blade arm from its chassis, impaling a canister that launched into the air and exploded in the way of an incoming treadspeeder allowing Chewie to blast the trooper out of the air with his bowcaster.

"One more!" Threepio yelled as they approached a rocky ravine, and Finn threw a grappling hook across the ravine, clotheslining the treadspeeder mounted trooper. 

The remaining jet trooper launched a rocket that hit the skiff speeders, exploding them and propelling the group into the air, where they crashed into the desert sands.

Rey aimed her blaster at the incoming jet trooper as he soared overhead, and missed.

Poe scored the hit, and the jet trooper spiraled out of control towards a nearby rock face, exploding on impact. 

They stood up to dust themselves off before setting out to the mountains to avoid any more possible skirmishes with the First Order, but the terrain proved challenging, for they began to sink rapidly into the sand.

"Oh my," exclaimed Threepio. "Does anyone else have a sinking feeling?"


	9. Ochi's Legacy

Rey drew her lightsaber for a source of light in the pitch dark tunnels, and as a ready weapon for whatever may be waiting for them in the tunnels.

Rey glanced to her right and grinned in amusement, for Poe had drawn a flashlight, and held it up as if he had a lightsaber of his own.

Finn shook his head, punching him in the arm. "C'mon man, stop messing around. Let's find a way out of here."

"Where is here anyway?" Poe wondered aloud. "Threepio?"

BB8 attached a cable to Threepio's chest and tried to pull him up. Chewie growled and heaved the android up by his torso to a standing position.

"Why, thank you Chewbacca," said Threepio. "Oh, what a fright!"

"Threepio?" Poe repeated. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

Threepio scanned the dark tunnel with his glowing, unblinking eyes. "I believe we are underground."

Poe looked around, deadpanning "Well, uh, you're not wrong."

"Any idea what could have caused this sinkhole?" Finn asked.

Threepio gestured to the circular walls around the tunnel. "It is not a natural formation. It looks like it was created...by what and for what purpose, I do not know."

"We are not alone," Rey said gravely, raising her lightsaber defensively. "Let's find a way out of here before we run into whoever or whatever made these tunnels."

Poe shrugged and gestured to Rey. "Ladies first."

****

The sand burrow made for easy traveling with its flat, hard-packed ground and cool air-which was good because they had no idea how long it would take to find a way out.

The burrow played tricks on their minds, and speculation began again on the origin of the tunnels.

Poe however, wasn't having any of it.

“I don’t want to know what made these tunnels,” Poe insisted.

“Judging by the bore circumference,” Threepio speculated. “Any number of deadly species could—”

“Do _not_ want to know,” Poe repeated. “ _Not_.”

Suddenly, BB-8 warbled at something ahead, which brought them up short. 

Rey gingerly crept to BB-8's side and found a pile of bones at her feet. Tattered clothes clung to the remains. A leather belt with a knife sheath circled its pelvis. The sheath was empty.

"Bones...I don't like bones!" Poe complained.

BB-8 extended a tube from his tool compartment and began blowing away some nearby sand. Gradually, an object appeared—long and metallic, a dagger.

"This guy must have been trouble: look at this dagger," Finn said as he examined the ornate dagger covered in cobwebs before casting it aside.

Rey stared at the discarded dagger before something else caught her eye.

"What's this?" Rey squatted down near Finn and picked up a flat device. "Looks like a drive of sorts...BB-8?"

Rey inserted the device to the droid, who analyzed it and beeped a response.

"A dossier?" Rey asked, confused.

Finn's eyes blazed with barely suppressed rage. "Of every child taken for the stormtrooper program. This guy was a bounty hunter. Specialized in trafficking."

Poe looked away, still unable to look at the skeleton of the alien. "Must of been that Ochi guy Lando was talking about...why would _this_ guy have something like that?"

Finn took the dossier drive from out of BB-8's port and twirled it in his hand. "My guess is that with the aggressive new stormtrooper program, they didn't need a guy like him anymore. So Ochi here probably got a hold of their records and attempted to sell it off. Gets in too deep, and then gets the Order _and_ Calirissian after him. Flees here, gets caught in the tunnel and dies."

"Yeah, well, no offense, buddy, but we gotta get outta here, " Poe said nervously. "This isn't our priority mission right now."

"Are you kidding me?" Finn snapped. "We can use this! Calirissian can use this!"

Rey rolled her eyes. _Calirissian_. That scoundrel.

"Look, you might not like the guy, but we can at least bargain with him," Finn hissed. "He helps decode the rest of our intel and joins the Resistance, and he gets this drive in return."

"Fine, fine! Can we just get out of here before whatever finished this guy off finishes us off too?!" Poe growled nervously.

"Oh dear! I believe it may be too late for that!" cried Threepio.

The group wheeled around to see an enormous, slimy white alien snake creature with long, needle-like teeth and multiple eyes.

It hissed at them, blocking a section that led to the exit of the underground tunnel cave.

Chewie growled, leveling his bowcaster at the beast. Finn and Poe followed suit, and Threepio backed away as fast as his robotic legs could take him, BB-8 wheeling in front of him defensively.

"Wait!" Rey called. "Wait! Don't shoot!"

"Are you crazy?!" Poe snapped.

Rey handed Finn her lightsaber. "Here. It's hurt, see?"

She indicated a wound on the snake's side.

"Yeah? What're you going to do, use some magic Force ability to heal it?" Finn asked, holding the lightsaber and the blaster defensively in front of himself.

"What?! No! And get eaten if I tried?!" Rey snapped. She closed her eyes and focused. "We are not here to hurt you...let us pass..."

The others slowly edged past as Rey kept the snake's attention, the beast hypnotized by Rey's influence over it. 

"We are not here to hurt you..." Rey intoned as she followed suit behind her friends, backing away from the creature through the tunnel threshold.

"Get ready to run!" Rey yelled. "Now!" 

She dropped her influence on the snake and ran through the tunnel behind her friends as the beast shook off the effects of the manipulation. It roared in rage and chased after them.

"NOW CHEWIE!" Rey screamed as she leapt out of the entrance.

The Wookie aimed a bowcaster blast at the roof of the cave entrance, creating a barrier of sand and rock that the snake slammed against before it could reach them.

They looked around. The tunnel had dumped them even closer to Ochi's old ship. It was perched atop a huge rock platform like a vulture waiting for a meal in the desert sands.

“We cannot possibly fly in that old wreck!” C-3PO protested as they began to climb up toward the ship, the old droid struggling to keep up over the jutting rocks.

“We gotta keep moving,” Poe urged from just ahead.

“I suggest we return to the _Millennium Falcon_ at once.” Threepio insisted.

“They’ll be waiting at the _Falcon_ ,” Poe replied.

“They’ll send us to the pits of Griq,” Finn said.

“And use you as a target droid,” Poe added.

“You both make excellent points at times,” Threepio agreed.

Rey shook her head. Finn and Poe were just teasing the uptight protocol droid, but it was true that the _Falcon_ was probably in First Order hands by now, even with Chewie's security precautions. It was possible she’d never see that old ship again.

A familiar presence made the hair at her nape stand on end, and she froze in place.

“Rey?” Finn turned to see what had made her pause, concerned.

She would not allow him to be hurt by what was coming. She would protect her friend--all of her friends-- at all costs.

“I’ll be right behind you,” she said gently.

He frowned. He knew her enough to know when she was getting herself into trouble.

She gave a little mental push with the Force and added, “It’s okay.”

Finn was wordless as she handed over her quarterstaff and haversack—everything save the lightsaber and blaster hooked to her belt.

She felt his eyes on her back as she descended the rocks, careful to avoid the shifting sand mires. When she made it to a wide, flat stretch of desert, she sprinted.

'Go, Finn', she thought, pushing a little harder with the Force. 'Go.'

***

Finn’s head was fuzzy as they approached the old ship. Could've been the heat. Maybe it was the fact that Rey had told him to go, and he’d just left her in the desert without question. Something about the latter scenario didn’t make sense.

Poe hit the freighter’s hatch release, and the access ramp descended, allowing them to access the sand choked hold.

Ochi hadn’t sealed this place up before being swallowed by the sand mires-he must have thought he’d be returning before long. The hold was filled with junk and cages, and the walls remained mostly open to the ship’s inner workings. The interior was so messy it made the _Falcon_ look almost tidy, and that was saying something. On a wall near the entrance to the sleeping quarters, a metal plaque identified the ship: _Bestoon Legacy_.

As Poe tried to start the ship and Threepio ranted about the disgusting state of the ship, the realization that Finn was standing in the middle of a ship that was one of the many First Order contracted trafficking ships-a ship that could have taken _him_ -hit Finn like a bowcaster bolt.

The ship suddenly roared to life: Poe and Chewie came through. Some luck, at last. But they couldn’t leave without Rey, who still hadn’t entered the ship.

“Where is she?” Finn asked no one in particular. He hurried to the cockpit viewport and searched the vast desert, soon spotting her in the far distance, a tiny, wind-whipped figure. 

“Chewie,” Finn said, thinking of the Wookie’s long stride and superior speed. “Tell Rey we gotta go.”

Chewie growled his assent, then headed out to fetch her. A moment later the Wookie appeared in view of the viewport, but he promptly disappeared behind a rock formation on his way toward the desert floor.

***

Several long minutes passed, and Finn hated feeling useless as Poe flicked the controls and made adjustments. With Poe's expert finangaling, the ship soon achieved flight readiness, and they just needed Chewie to return with Rey before they could take off.

“What the hell is she _doing_?” Poe demanded. “Where _is_ Chewie now?”

"I'll take a quick look," Finn replied jogged down the ramp into the desert. "Just don't take off without us!"

"No promises!" Poe joked behind him.

Finn headed for the outcropping that Chewbacca had disappeared behind, but he stopped short and quickly hunkered down when he heard footsteps. Slowly, carefully, he peered around the rock—and nearly gasped.

Chewie had been captured. Manacles circled his furry wrists. Tall figures with dark armor and strange weapons shoved him toward a handful of stormtroopers and their transports. Kylo's Knights of Ren. They couldn't possibly be anyone else.

He should flee. But within moments Chewie would be loaded onto a transport and taken away. Probably tortured for information and killed.

Finn had no choice but to act now. He drew his blaster, intending to charge forward, but he froze when a dozen more stormtroopers poured down the ramp in formation. Attacking them all at once would be suicide.

Finn would have to retreat back to the _Bestoon Legacy_ and come up with another plan with Poe.

No, that wouldn’t work. Not enough time.

The fact that an entire transport was here, along with the Knights of Ren and, more than likely, Kylo Ren himself, could only mean one thing: they were after Rey.

He had to warn her.


	10. Capture

Standing alone in the middle of the desert, Rey could sense him. She could see the dust he left in his wake in the distance, hear the mechanical shriek of his TIE _Whisper's_ engines in the wind. She sensed his ever present anger, his determination, his anticipation.

She sensed his heartbeat race with hers, and she took a deep breath, unhooking her lightsaber from her belt, activating the blue blade just as the _Whisper_ appeared over Pasaana's heat hazed mountains.

Rey pushed aside the roiling emotions that screamed at her through the bond, turning away from the oncoming threat, poised in a runner's stance, looking behind her only to judge its trajectory.

The _Whisper_ blazed full speed ahead at her, and she took off in a sprint, and just when it looked like the ship was going to collide with her, Rey leapt high into the air, flipping over the TIE and slicing off the spport plyon of the forward pointing left wing with a precision slash of her lightsaber, landing in a crouch inside the cloud of choking dust the ship left in its wake.

She watched as Kylo lost control of the crippled TIE, smoke pouring out of the ship as it spun, digging a ditch in the sand before crashing into the embankment in a crumpled, smoking heap.

Rey hooked her lightsaber to her belt and turned to sprint back toward Ochi’s freighter. She knew he wasn't dead- she could still sense him through the Force- but he shouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Long enough for her to escape.

An incoming figure appeared ahead, familiar in his blue pants and flight jacket.

“Rey!” Finn screamed at her across the desert plain. “They got Chewie!”

A transport lifted into view over the horizon, its drive thrusters already glowing blue.

Finn punched the air with his finger, having to yell over the roar of the engines. “Chewie’s in there!"

No. No, no, no, no. Rey had been here before, so many years ago, standing helplessly as sand blasted her skin, watching a ship carry away someone she loved.

No. Not this time. She would not let them take Chewie from her. 

Rey reached out with the Force, imagining herself grabbing the transport, wrenching it back planetside. It actually slowed, wobbling in the air, it's engines whining as Rey pulled it back like an invisible lasso.

Through the corner of her eye, Rey watched in shock as Kylo emerged relatively unscathed from the wreckage of the _Whisper_ , save for a rumpled uniform and dirty face.

Though she knew she didn't want to kill him, she had certainly meant the crash to incapacitate him a lot longer than that. 

Rey fought hard to pull the ship back, but Kylo's approach distracted her, and she lost focus: the ship was winning.

Kylo watched her with a smirk on his scarred face as she struggled to pull the transport back. He was impressed, but he would not let her have it.

Rey, determined to not only rescue Chewbacca but to undermine her estranged suitor, gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts, establishing firm control of the ship.

Kylo scowled and stepped in, blocking her pull. In a sort of rematch of their tug-of-war over Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber the year prior, the pair struggled over the flight path of the transport, with Rey pulling it back and Kylo pushing it forward.

Kylo's teeth gritted with the effort, but Rey was so determined to not only get Chewie back but to one-up Kylo that she mustered all the energy she could into the pull, screaming from the immense effort.

The transport couldn't handle the strain of it's own propulsion and the twin Force energies acting upon it, and its durasteel hull warped and bent before exploding in a deafening fireball in the blue Pasaana skies.

Rey stumbled back, gasping for air as bits of wreckage rained down onto the desert plain. The transport—and everyone inside—reduced to nothingness.

She stared down in horror at her hand, at Kylo, at the bits of wreckage that littered the sand around them.

What had _they_ done?

"CHEWIE!!!" shrieked Rey, her stomach heaving, tears pouring down her cheeks.

FLASH!!

_The starship slowed, straining as if it was towing an immensely heavy weight. It shook, the durasteel warping like a tin can._

_"Come back!"_

_The starship, unable to handle the pull of the invisible forces acting upon it, exploding into a brilliant_ _cloud of fire, smoke, and durasteel._

FLASH!!

Rey shook off the vision, her eyes burning with tears, glaring with rage at Kylo. 

He had appeared just as shocked as she was, but whether it was for Chewbacca or the loss of his men, Rey had no idea, and at that moment, she didn't care.

"Rey..." Kylo mouthed, pleading.

Their eyes met. Rey could sense his remorse for Chewbacca from across the bond, and her rage subsided. She felt the inexplicable urge to go to him, but a volley of blaster fire directed at Kylo from behind her broke her out of her confused reverie. 

"COME ON, REY!" shouted Finn as he directed another volley at Kylo. "GO! GO!"

The _Bestoon Legacy_ swooped down, guided towards the sand by Poe, it's entrance ramp descending as Finn sprinted towards it. In the distance, Rey could see at least a half dozen incoming First Order TIE fighters. 

Rey had no choice but to retreat. With one last look at Kylo, she rejoined her friends and the _Bestoon Legacy_ shot off towards space, leaving Kylo feeling exactly as he did the year before on Crait: full of regret at his half-victory as she escapes him yet again.

***

**_The Steadfast_ , Pasaana's Orbit.**

Generals Pryde and Hux were notified of the conclusion of the mission, and were alerted to the bridge. 

Hux watched in satisfaction through the viewport as a transport towed the notorious junk heap of a freighter known as the _Millennium Falcon_ towards the holding bay.

He imagined with a devilish grin on his pale face the things he would do to it after they dismantled it for information...jettison it towards a sun? Use it as target practice? Convert it into a bomb and drop it onto the Resistance scum? 

Ah, the possibilities.

Just then, the sliding door hissed open and an officer entered, flanked by a pair of stormtroopers.

Hux and Pryde turned to acknowledge the officer, awaiting news of the mission. 

"Report," Pryde demanded.

"We recovered the scavenger's ship, but she got away, and a transport was destroyed--," the officer began.

"Under the command of the Knights of Ren, no doubt," Hux interrupted.

Pryde rolled his eyes. "Resume your report."

"There was another transport in the desert," the officer continued. "One that brought back a valuable prisoner!"

The sliding door hissed open behind him, revealing a very angry Wookie restrained by a group of very harassed stormtroopers.

"Ah yes, the beast that used to fly with Han Solo," Hux sneered.

Chewbacca roared angrily in Hux's face, the Wookie's powerful (and rather putrid) breath blowing his meticulously coiffed ginger hair. 

Hux winced, but remained poised as the stormtrooper handlers pulled the growling Wookie back with cuffs and a telescoping neck restraint.

He would not be made a fool out of by anyone, not the Wookie, and especially not Pryde.

Pryde was unaffected by Chewbacca's aggressive display, regarding him disdainfully. "Take him to Interrogation Six."

***

**Resistance HQ. Ajan Kloss**

General Leia was in the command center, getting briefed by Major Temmin "Snap" Wexley on the status of their meager but expanding fleet.

“Everyone we can spare is repairing and upgrading ships,” Snap said. “We’re working as fast as we can.”

Leia nodded. Just outside, sparks were flying everywhere, and she was about to ask for the status updates on a few specific ships, but Rose Tico hurried toward her, interrupting them.

“General, the _Falcon_ has reached Pasaana, but we haven't heard anything from them in hours," Rose reported. Concern was etched on her face. She was worried about Finn.

"This mission is everything. It cannot fail,” Leia sighed. She could sense great sadness and remorse through the Force. From both Rey _and_ her son. 

She nodded to Rose and Snap. "Keep up the good work. Notify me about anything new. Good or bad."

Snap chuckled darkly.

At the look on Leia’s face, Rose growled at Snap. “Really?”

“What?” he said.

“Do me a personal favor,” Leia chided. “Be optimistic.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Snap, forcing a smile. “This is…this is terrific. You’re not gonna believe how well…this is gonna turn out great.”

Leia rolled her eyes. She put her hand on Rose's shoulder. "Keep trying."

***

**The _Steadfast_ , Pasaana's Orbit**

It had been a relatively quick shuttle ride from the desert to The _Steadfast_ for Kylo Ren. His TIE _Whisper_ was beyond repair, but luckily for him he was able to at least retrieve the Wayfinder from it. Not to worry. There would be another _Whisper_ series TIE waiting for him at the ship.

Still, he wasn't in the best of moods when he arrived, and most of his subordinates were smart to avoid him lest they incur his wrath.

Most, for Generals Pryde and Hux were waiting for him.

If they had been any lower ranking, he would have tossed them out of the nearest airlock for even looking at him the wrong way.

"Supreme Leader, I--" Hux began.

"I am well aware of the results of the mission, General Hux," Kylo interrupted, shoving past the generals. "I don't need it repeated back to me."

"We have a prisoner, Supreme Leader," Pryde announced. "A valuable one."

"Resistance?" Kylo's interest was piqued.

A small smile ghosted itself across Pryde's weathered face as Hux shot him a dirty look. "The Wookie known as Chewbacca, Supreme Leader."

Kylo's heart skipped a beat. "Take me to him."


	11. Cracking the Code

**Thieves** **Quarter. Kimiji City, Kimiji.**

Kijimi City was an ancient, once-grand city that had been slowly carved into a snowy mountainside over the course of many, many centuries. Its cobblestone streets were twisted at steep, narrow angles, and slippery steps perpetually coated with ice and snow had caused many an unwary visitor painful regret.

The _Bestoon Legacy_ touched down on a snowy outcrop near the outskirts of the city, and Finn, the most warmly dressed of the group, set about haggling a few jackets to protect them from the chilly wind. He soon returned to the ship, jackets in tow, and the five set off into the freezing city in search of Lando Calrissian and whomever could possibly decrypt the First Order intel.

They had to keep their guard up at all times. Shadows seem to follow them. Roughs with big guns huddling together for warmth glared menacingly at them. 

Why Lando Calrissian had chosen this place to set up shop was beyond them. Once administrator of Cloud City on the planet of Bespin, this frigid home of criminals and scoundrels was about as far removed from that as one could be. 

They were lucky that Poe even knew where to go, for the Resistance had to engage with these folk before with black market supply deals, and General Leia had once remarked that they were as shifty as Jawas and deadly as Tuskens.

Despite their care, they soon rounded a street corner before a dark alleyway, and Poe and Finn suddenly felt a pair of blasters pressed behind their heads.

"That's a nice ship you got over there," a woman's voice said through a vocabulator, giving it a rough edge. "A baby snatcher ship."

Rey's hand hovered threateningly over her blaster, which was holstered below the bottom hem of the jacket. "We don't want any trouble."

"You brought the trouble here, baby snatcher," the woman snapped.

"Zorii!" Lando called out from an alleyway. "Ease up, they're friends of mine."

Lando swaggered over to them, gesturing toward the woman. "Poe, Finn, Rey. And Threepio and the little one of course...meet Zorii Bliss. Best merc in the galaxy."

Zorii Bliss lowered her blasters slowly. She was tall and lithe, like Rey, but dressed head to to in a deep purple skintight flightsuit trimmed with coppery bronzium, complete with a gold, elongated helmet and black visor that shrouded her entire face.

"You dealing with baby snatchers now, Calrissian?" accused Zorii. "They were spotted at Monk's Gate with a baby snatcher ship. _His_ ship!"

"Baby snatchers? Wait. What?" Lando was flabbergasted. When he saw no denial in their faces, he rounded on them. "Why do you have _his_ ship? Where's the _Falcon_? Where's Chewie?"

"Chewie's dead," Rey hissed through gritted teeth. "And the _Falcon_ was stolen. All because _you_ couldn't just-"

"Rey!" Poe interrupted. He turned to Lando. "I'm sorry. We're all a bit shaken up. Can you-"

Lando's face darkened. He gestured to the alleyway. "Of course. Babu Frik's workshop is right through here! Come in. Quickly!"

***

**The _Steadfast_. Deep Space**

Kylo Ren stood before the door of Interrogation Six, rallying his thoughts. He had felt a pang of remorse when he thought he had killed the Wookie, and having to interrogate him when his vestigial childish emotions were still raw was not at all ideal.

But it had to be him. The others would waste their torture on the Wookie: Chewbacca would never succumb and betray his secrets. Only the Force could draw out the truth, the knowledge Kylo sought.

The knowledge that led to the scavenger. The knowledge Kylo would procure by any means necessary.

He steeled himself and pushed the datapad to open Interrogation Six. Chewbacca was manacled to the wall as he entered, and glared up at him as he entered, letting out a low, guttural growl.

"Believe me when I tell you that this brings me no pleasure," Kylo said, raising his gloved hands to the sides of the Wookie's shaggy head. "But I will find her...even if I have to go through _you_!"

Rifling through Chewbacca's mind was exhausting and painstaking. He sought only recent memories. Relevant memories. Mission details.

But the wily old Wookie fought him with all of his being, and flooded his mind instead with memories of his former self's youth. He saw flashes of Chewbacca laughing with a much younger Han Solo than he himself remembered. He felt Chewbacca’s joy when his best friend married the woman he’d come to love like a sister. He saw the him holding a human toddler in his long arms, chuckling as the boy buried himself in his fur. He saw him teaching an older boy how to fly a speeder, target practice with a young man

 _Uncle Chewie_ , Ben Solo called him back then. Nausea roiled around in the pit of Kylo’s stomach when he finally walked away from Interrogation Six. He’d gotten what he needed. But not without a toll.

With a spinning head, Kylo stumbled out of Interrogation Six and summoned Pryde and Hux to him.

"Set a course for Kimiji immediately," Kylo ordered as they met him by Interrogation Six. "Prepare a dropship for my Knights and a squad of your finest troopers."

"Of course, Supreme Leader," Pryde nodded and strode away.

Hux stood alone with Kylo, who leaned against the wall, rubbing his temples.

“Shall we destroy the city, Supreme—” Hux began.

Kylo stuck a long finger in Hux’s face, effectively shushing him. “I want her taken alive."

Kylo spun on his heels and stalked towards Pryde down the corridor.

"And I want all the Wookie's belongings brought to my quarters!"

Hux glared at Kylo as he stormed away. He was a general of the First Order! He wasn't an errand boy!

Ren wasn't thinking clearly. He clearly had a history with the Wookie. His father's copilot...perhaps he could use that to his advantage.

***

**Babu Frik's Workshop. Thieves Quarter. Kimiji City, Kimiji.**

Lando led them to Babu Frik's workshop, and the group was glad to get out of the cold Kimiji weather, if not trepidatious about the turn in fortune their mission had taken.

The place was a mess of technology, weaponry. The walls were completely obscured by shelves, piled with wires and electronics. Every table surface was covered, every nook and cranny filled to overflowing. Old battle droid parts from the Clone Wars hung freely from the ceiling. Rey couldn't help but mentally calculate the portion value of the junk. Had she still been living on Jakku, she'd be well fed for a while.

Rey's musings on portion values were interrupted when a little droid that looked like an odd raygun on two wheels rolled up past them and introduced itself to BB-8.

"D-0," it beeped merrily. Rey couldn't help but smile as BB-8 beeped back. New friends could be made anywhere, she supposed, even frozen criminal hideouts like this.

"Is this where you live, Master Calrissian?" Threepio asked, alarmed, almost condescendingly. He's been around bases for years and he couldn't remember one being so messy...and macabre, he noted as he bumped into a dismantled astromech. "My word."

"Me? Of course not!" Lando laughed. "Nah, me, I just got a little bit of a lodge up a little ways that I stretch out in between runs and such."

"So, uh, where's this Babu Frik guy?" Poe asked abruptly, cutting the small talk.

Lando nodded to the center of the hub, where a small simian creature with large googles and long whiskers tinkered with a miscellaneous droid attachment on a table next to a computer hub. 'Babu Frik' perked his diminutive head up at the sound of his name.

Finn and Poe looked at each other in disbelief. The creature was easily overlooked, and could have mistaken for a pet if he didn't rush over to them and snatch the holodisk out of Finn's stunned hand, muttering to himself excitedly in a bilingual mishmash of Galactic Standard and his own native tongue.

"Big things come in small packages, they say," Lando remarked proudly as the creature settled at a custom, miniature interface station with the holodisk in tow. "Believe me, there isn't anyone in this galaxy besides him that could crack that encryption."

"I hope you're right," sighed Poe.

Babu Frik placed the holodisc into the computer and pulled up the encrypted file. The creature laughed to himself, muttering as his deft little fingers danced across the interface.

"He will..." grinned Lando.

The initial information that was projected into the room was information they already discovered. The Final Order: a top secret program run by the Dark Side cult of Sith Eternal on the planet of Exegol, its existence known only by a very select few in the First Order. Its purpose: to bring forth the rebirth of the Galactic Empire of Sith.

They saw blueprints of a new class of Imperial Star Destroyer, armor designs for a red stormtrooper army, new brutal weapons.

An icon in the shape of a pyramid was projected, it's shape vaguely familiar to Rey.

"That pyramid! There!" she pointed.

Babu focused on the icon. The information accompanying it flashed before their eyes, but in a language they couldn't understand. It definitely wasn't Galactic Standard.

"Old Sith," Threepio pointed out. "I am forbidden by my programming to speak it aloud."

"So we've heard." Poe rubbed his hands together nervously. He turned to Babu Frik. "Alright little buddy: you're on. This is why we sought you out."

"Can you run a translation, Babu?" Lando asked.

"Babu can do! Babu can do!" the droidsmith excitedly exclaimed, and within a few tense minutes the Sith runes were roughly translated. Threepio scanned the translation.

"Two holocron Wayfinders were made, one for the Apprentice, Darth Vader, to be stored within his Fortress at Mustafar--," Threepio narrated.

"That must have been the one Kylo took," Rey interrupted.

"--The other was made for the Master, Darth Sidious, to be stored with within the Emperor's Imperial Vaults--" Threepio continued.

"Wasn't that on Coruscant?" Poe asked.

Lando shook his head. "Back when the second Death Star was constructed there were mutterings that it would serve as the Emperor's new mobile headquarters."

"Well, that's great," Poe threw his hands up in irritation. "One place has been completely repurposed after the Galactic Civil War and the other was blown all to hell."

"There was wreckage," Threepio offered. "A large portion --"

"Where?" Poe held his hand up impatiently.

"Has been confirmed to-"

"Well, it'd have to be in the Endor system wouldn't it?" Lando speculated.

"--have ended up on Kef Bir, the ocean moon of Endor," Threepio finished.

"What are the chances of it even being intact?" Finn pointed out.

"A long shot," Poe said.

"It's got to be worth that shot," Rey decided.

Poe was about to say something back, but the entire workshop suddenly began rattling. Bolts and screws spilled from shelves. The battle droid legs hanging from the ceiling swung violently.

Rey felt a familiar tingle at the back of her neck and she ran to the window, with Poe and Finn following. Together, they peered up into the night.

A massive Star Destroyer loomed high overhead, blocking out the sky. The blowback from its thrusters shook the city, tossing trash and loose snow about, creating chaos.

_Flash!_

_Illuminated by the dim lights of the dropship were the black clad forms of Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, and his loyal Knights of Ren, ringed by a menacing squad of white Snow Troopers._

_They only had one mission._

_Find the scavenger._

_Flash!_

The vision disappeared as fast as it hit, leaving Rey reeling.

Finn steadied Rey as she found her bearings. She then said what they all feared.

"B-Kylo Ren's Destroyer!"


	12. Rescue

"He’s here?!" Poe's eyes widened. He motioned for the holodisk so the group could escape before the First Order reached them.

Rey searched deeper into the Force. 

**"** Chewie!" Rey announced.

"What about him?" Finn asked.

"He’s on Kylo's ship. He’s alive," Rey was relieved, but worried.

"What? How?" Poe asked asked as Lando and his crew gathered their weapons and essential gear.

"He’s alive!" Rey figured. "He must have been on a different transport."

"We got to get him," Finn decided.

"That's a suicide mission," Poe shook his head.

"You know he'd do the same for us," Finn disagreed. "We're not leaving him behind."

"Look, it's not that I don't want to rescue Chewie, it's that we'll be blasted out of the sky before we even get in there!" Poe hissed.

"I think I may have something that could help," Lando interrupted, brandishing a large medallion, rounded like a coin with a port for connectivity.

"A First Order officer's medallion! That could get us on the star destroyer!" Finn exclaimed.

Rey was confused.

"“Free passage through any blockade. Landing privileges at any garrison.” Lando explained, putting the medallion in Rey's hands. "Take it. Get him back!"

Rey nodded.

Poe clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks. Really. For all your help."

Rey searched the Force. She could feel Kylo's desperate need to find her through the bond. He was coming to the planet's surface, no doubt with squads of stormtroopers.

"Kylo Ren is coming," Rey warned, pressing for a sense of urgency. "Come on. We can get Chewie while his attention is focused here."

Finn turned to leave. He froze and pulled something out of his pocket, handing it to Lando.

Lando took it, a puzzled expression on his face.

"It's a stormtrooper dossier," Finn explained. "We took it from Ochi's corpse. Consider it thanks."

Lando was speechless, a considerable feat regarding a notorious smooth talker like him. He shook Finn's hand. "May the Force be with you."

"C'mon Finn, buddy!" Poe urged as Zorii Bliss led them to a secret passageway out of the workshop. "We gotta go!"

"Good luck," Zorii said as Finn entered the passageway.

"How about you?" Finn asked.

"I don't need luck," Zorii replied, holding up her twin blasters. "I got these. Now go!"

Finn nodded, and dashed towards his escaping friends.

***

Finn followed Poe and Rey as they raced into the cockpit of the _Bestoon Legacy_. Rey took the pilot’s seat, and Poe slipped into the co-pilot's seat beside her. Both started flicking a dizzying array of switches on the dashboard. Lights flickered on, and the engines hummed to life.

“Hang tight,” Poe said. “We’re going up hot.”

In the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ , “going up hot” meant "get your ass to a to the turret station", but there was nothing for a third passenger to do in the _Bestoon Legacy--_ the cockpit didn’t even have a place to sit except for the pilot's and copilot's seats. Until there was something for him to shoot at with a blaster, Finn would have to settle for just "hanging tight."

Rey lifted them away from the planet at such an incredibly fast, steep angle that the acceleration compensators couldn’t keep Finn and Threepio from stumbling around, nearly getting themselves ran over by a screaming and rolling BB-8.

Within moments the ship had cleared the atmosphere and were quickly approaching the massive Star Destroyer that was most certainly Kylo Ren’s command ship.

 _Why am I always flying myself back into these things?_ Thought Finn as he righted himself by holding onto Rey's and Poe's seats.

Rey slipped Lando's captain’s medallion into the dash slot. Everyone in the cockpit was dead silent as they waited to see if they would get blown to bits.

Something beeped, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Medallion works,” Poe reported. “Cleared for cargo hangar twelve.”

“Hang on, Chewie,” Rey murmured as they approached. “We’re coming.”

Traffic around the _Steadfast_ was heavy, with supply ships, TIEs, and shuttles flying to and from the various hangars. Rey angled the _Bestoon Legacy_ neatly toward one, slowing the ship through the containment field, and lightly touched the freighter down onto the shiny hangar floor. Wasting no time, they rushed down the ramp.

Two patrol troopers approached, stepping towards them in unison.

“Credentials and manife—”one began before Rey knocked their heads together with the Force. Both collapsed to the ground as Finn and Poe stared.

Rey grinned and turned to the droids, who were attempting to follow.

“You two stay there,” she ordered.

“Happily,” squeaked Threepio.

“Which way?” Poe asked, looking around the currently empty hangar.

"I got an idea. Follow me!” Finn replied, and the three rushed forward, darting from corner to corner, weapons drawn, avoiding detection the best they could.

Finn's experience as a stormtrooper had given him a rough knowledge of the First Order's fleet-universal construction and organization, and thus a rough estimate where Chewbacca's holding cell would be.

They had made good progress at first, but soon ran into a pair of stormtroopers as they rounded a corner in the ship's labyrinth-like corridors. 

"Drop your weapons!" ordered a stormtrooper, leveling his blaster rifle at the trio. 

Rey quickly waved her hand, using the Force to influence the troopers.

"It’s okay that we’re here," she said.

The stormtroopers lowered their weapons, and Rey nodded to Finn and Poe that it was okay they did too.

"It’s okay that you’re here," repeated Stormtrooper one, the mind trick taking effect.

"It’s good," assured Stormtrooper two.

"We're looking for a prisoner and his belongings," Rey continued as she enchanted the stormtroopers.

"Anything," Stormtrooper one said.

"We'll tell you," Stormtrooper two agreed.

Poe turned to Finn. "Does she do that to us?"

Rey ignored Poe and continued her Jedi mind trick. "You'll remove your armor and clothes and hide out of sight."

"Wait. What?" Poe asked.

"Oh hell no! I didn't just spend two years getting out of stormtrooper armor to get back in!" Finn yelled as Rey walked away, stormtrooper armor falling at his feet. "Hey!"

"Meet you back in the hangar!" Rey called as she dashed away.

"There she goes again! Why does she keep doing that?" Poe growled as Rey rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.

****

Chewbacca growled as a pair of stormtroopers entered his holding cell, lashing out against his restraints as the troopers came closer.

"Hey! Hey! Relax, Chewie! It's us!" Finn said, taking off his helmet to calm the angry Wookiee.

Chewbacca growled quizzically as the disguised Poe watched the entrance while Finn set to work releasing his restraints.

"Rey, long story short," Finn replied, looking around for Chewie's bandolier and bowcaster. "Where's the--"

Chewie said Kylo Ren took the weapons, began to apologize profusely about not being strong enough to resist the Supreme Leader's probe.

"It's okay, Chewie," Poe replied, peeking out the hold. "Been there before."

Chewie asked if they had a plan.

"Plan?" Finn looked at Poe. "Do we have a plan?"

***

Rey entered a bright, white, immaculately clean space with a high ceiling: Kylo Ren’s private quarters. She was irresistibly drawn to the place, as if by muscle memory. She trusted the Force, knowing it brought her here for a reason. She stepped slowly, carefully, almost as if Kylo could burst through at any moment, even though Rey knew he was still on Kimiji. 

She noted Chewie’s bowcaster and bandolier on a nearby table, and made a mental note to grab them before she left.

A few more steps brought her to a pedestal, deep black in contrast with its surroundings, jutting unchallenged from the shiny white floor. A place of honor. Displayed atop the pedestal was Kylo's helmet, pieced together with a shiny red substance that gave it the appearance of being freshly welded. It was what Rey was drawn to. She could sense Kylo still within it.

By the Force, Rey hated that helmet. To her it was a physical manifestation of the Kylo Ren persona, the spectre that haunted her nightmares and encased Ben Solo within. 

Suddenly, Kylo Ren appeared through the connection before her, breaking her out of her reverie, his bare face as much a mask as the one before her. Snow dusted his cape.

 **"** Rey, wherever you are, you are hard to find," Kylo greeted.

"You’re hard to get rid of," Rey replied, moving away from Kylo's patchwork helmet.

 **"** Oh, but deep down I know you don't want to get rid of me," Kylo grinned as he watched Rey circle him through the bond at Kimiji.

"But you don't? You nearly ran me down back at Pasaana!" Rey snapped.

"I only did so to push you. To push you ever so closer to the Dark Side through your fear. Anger." Kylo reasoned.

"Nothing will turn me to the Dark Side, Kylo." Rey retorted, unhooking the lightsaber from her belt.

 **"** Oh, But you're already there. Back there. Pasaana. Familiar? I know the rest of your story, Rey." Kylo shot back.

 **"** You’re lying!" Rey hissed.

"I never lied to you. Your parents were no one. They did sell you for drinking money." Kylo began.

"Don’t!" Rey warned.

 **"** You remember more than you say. I’ve been in your head," Kylo continued.

 **"** I don’t want this!" Rey begged, her lightsaber shaking in her hand.

"Search your memories," Kylo implored, drawing his own lightsaber.

"No!!!" Rey screamed as Kylo slashed as her with his lightsaber, forcing her to activate her own to block the strike.

"Remember them," Kylo demanded. "See them."

 _"_ _No! Come back!" Rey screamed at her parent's starship as it departed into the Jakku sky. "Come back!"_

_"Come, girl! Come!" Roared the monstrous Unkar Plutt as he dragged her away. "You're mine now!"_

_"Come back!" Rey reached out towards the sky, as if to try to snatch the fleeing starship out of the sky. "Come back!"_

_The starship slowed, straining as if it was towing an immensely heavy weight. It shook, the metal warping like a tin can._

_"Come back!"_

_The starship, unable to handle the pull of the invisible forces acting upon it, exploding into a brilliant_ _cloud of fire, smoke, and metal._

"You did it. You killed them with the Force. You've repressed it all this time," Kylo revealed.

"Stop talking!" Rey sobbed.

 **"** All those years alone...waiting for parents that were never coming back," Kylo sighed.

"No!!!" shrieked Rey and Kylo suddenly lunged at her, swinging at her with ruthless aggression.

She parried, her lightsaber sliced through a basket, spilling red berries that came from nowhere, brighter than blood against the white floor of Kylo’s quarters. They were together and they were separate, in each other’s minds and spaces, but too focused on the adrenaline of combat to appreciate the wonderment of it all. Their blades sizzled with impact as they fought, creeping closer to Kylo's red-lined mask.

Rey managed to parry all of his strikes, but then Kylo batted her lightsaber arm into the helmet display, destroying the obsidian pillar it rested on and sending Kylo's welded-together helmet across the bond to Kylo's feet.

Kylo stared at his helmet in surprise, and swallowed down a surge of anger as he surmised her location.

"She was in my quarters!" Kylo gasped. He glared up at her as she stared in shock at him.

"I’m coming, Rey." Kylo warned, and then broke the bond, turning to a stormtrooper back on the snowy terrain of Kimiji.

"Supreme Leader, Calrissian and his crew are nowhere to be found." Reported the stormtrooper.

"Pull out and return to The _Steadfast_. Lock down the ship." Kylo ordered, picking up his old helmet. "Immediately."

***

Finn had checked the logs to where the _Falcon_ was being held, as soon he and Poe led Chewie through the winding corridors to the _Falcon'_ s holding area by the Wookiee's large, hairy arms, loosely cuffed to avoid any more suspicion than they had already.

"Moving the prisoner...moving the prisoner..." Poe nervously muttered as they rounded the tight corners.

"I think we're almost at the hangar where the _Falcon_ is," announced Finn.

"Halt! Where are you taking the prisoner?!" demanded a First Order officer, flanked by a gang of stormtroopers.

"Sir!" saluted Finn. Poe quickly followed suit.

The officer stepped forward. "I said: where are you taking this walking carpet, trooper?"

"I-uh," Finn stammered. The stormtroopers shifted their weapons threateningly.

Chewie roared, bringing his massive arms up, giving the officer a double uppercut. The officer fell back into the stunned troopers, and Finn and Poe took the opportunity to shoot at the others.

The trio ran, blasting wildly behind them as Chewie ran full speed to the nearby hangar bay where the _Falcon_ sat waiting, still in its holding area.

***

Rey peeked around the corner to the hangar they came in. Threepio and BB-8 were being questioned outside the _Bestoon Legacy_ by stormtroopers.

“What’s your operating number?” a stormtrooper demanded of the protocol droid.

Threepio responded with an unintelligible string of syllables. He was buying time her and the others.

Unfortunately, the stormtroopers were getting frustrated, and Rey had to intervene.

She took a moment to focus, lined up her shots, firing three direct hits. The stormtroopers crumpled to the ground as Rey sprinted for the freighter.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Threeio as Rey approached the ramp.

Rey skidded as she sensed a familiar presence. Kylo was approaching

“Where are the others?!” Rey demanded.

“They haven’t come back," Threepio replied as BB-8 rolled around, beeping warningly.

A dropship roared into the hangar bay and landed hard. Kylo was on that ship, and he was looking for her. She could sense his anticipation. Rey thrusted Chewie’s things in Threepio's arms and yelled to the droids to go and find the others. 

Rey was vaguely aware of Threepio scurrying out of the hangar with BB-8 on his heels as she took a deep breath awaiting Kylo's emerged from the dropship. The hatch opened and Kylo emerged, his helmet under an arm, his cloak whipping at his heels as a squad of stormtroopers filed out from behind him, weapons drawn, cutting off escape.

No Knights. They must still be on Kimiji,

"Why are you doing this?" Rey asked Kylo as she backed away towards the edge of _The Steadfast'_ s hangar, high above the planet's freezing atmosphere.

"To save your life," Kylo replied, a ghost of a warm smile forming across the handsome, scarred, conflicted face that had haunted Rey's dreams.

Rey shook her head. She didn't understand.

"I told you...Palpatine wants the last Jedi dead. If you were to join me, we could both end the Jedi and destroy him and the Sith. We take the throne together. Just you and I."

Rey had to look away from his pleading eyes. He was really doing this again. Offering her the galaxy. Did he not realize that killing tyrants and claiming their titles meant nothing to her? That offering himself and not the galaxy was the way to her heart?

"Kylo...Ben....I can't do this," Rey pleaded.

"Rey...Take my hand. We can become something more. You know what you need to do. _Please_ ," Kylo pleaded, offering his hand in supplication.

Just then the _Millennium Falcon_ sped into view in front of the hangar, it's side ramp opening to receive Rey.

Sparing one last glance at him, Rey responded with "I do", and leapt across the chasm of space to the waiting Finn, and they scrambled up the ramp as the _Falcon_ turned to take off.

The blowback of the ion engines pushed the occupants of the hangar back, and Kylo steadied himself with the Force to avoid joining them.

Kylo watched with melancholy as the _Falcon_ flew off and into hyperspace, and just then Generals Pryde and Hux rushed into view from across the hangar.

"Supreme Leader?! Ren?! You let them go?!" shrieked Hux, speedwalking to Kylo to berate him some more. "You lead us on this chase across the galaxy for them to end up on our ship and-ACK!!"

With a lightning quick movement Kylo activated his lightsaber, running through the general, his most hated rival, with a squelch.

Hux's head settled on Kylo's shoulder his as life seeped from his body.

As his focus remained on Rey, Kylo hardly had time to savor the moment as he unceremoniously shoved Hux's corpse off him and motioned for nearby stormtroopers to remove the body, brushing past the shocked cadre of officers and stormtroopers.

He called forth Pryde. "You've traced the freighter?"

Pryde glanced at Hux's lifeless corpse being dragged away from the hangar as its occupants scrambled around to resume their duties. He was unmoved, almost bored.

"Yes. Of course, Supreme Leader," replied Pryde.

"Good," replied Kylo, brushing past him. "I will require my _Whisper_ prepped with an escort of TIEs. When my Knights return, have them standby for my instructions."

"Very good, Supreme Leader," Pryde deferred, and with that Kylo Ren turned on his heels and headed for his quarters.


	13. Revelations

**_Millennium Falcon._ Deep Space.**

"Took you guys long enough," the hologram of Rose chided when they finally were able to send a transmission to Ajan Kloss, briefing them on the status of their mission and their current destination to the planet of Kef Bir.

Something about Rey's latest encounter with Kylo Ren had her in a rough spot, so she had spent much of the trip to Kef Bir in her quarters, and was absent from their briefings with Rose and the Resistance High Command.

As for Chewbacca, the _Falcon_ had sustained some damage in her handling between Pasaana and the _Steadfast_ , and was in need of repairs, so the Wookie opted to occupy himself with that rather than recount the details of his capture by the First Order to the High Command of the Resistance, half of whom understood Shyriiwook anyway. When the High Command got what they wanted, Rose took over.

"Yeah, well...we ran into some trouble," Finn sighed. "Got chased by stormtroopers on Pasaana, had to pretend to be stormtroopers on Kylo Ren's star destroyer...yeah. Good times."

"Relax, dummy. I'm only teasing," Rose laughed. "You guys did excellent. I mean it. All you guys need to do is get this Wayfinder device and we'll be on our way to Exegol."

"You make it sound like that's a good thing," Poe chuckled darkly. "How are things going on your end?"

Rose's holographic face darkened. "Well...the intel you guys were able to give us from the holodisk has been a treasure trove of information but..."

"But what?" Finn pressed.

"But it's not gonna mean anything if we don't have the resources to take advantage of it!" Rose's voice cracked, her upbeat facade replaced by naked worry. "And General Leia..."

"Leia?!" Poe cried.

"She's fallen ill...Maz is with her now...I guess all this stress is catching up with her," Rose speculated. 

Poe's fists shook with rage. It wasn't 'stress' that was causing Leia's illness. It was his fault. If only he had followed orders aboard The _Raddus..._ then perhaps Leia wouldn't have been blown into the cold vacuum of space. Wouldn't have nearly died then, and wouldn't be dying now from the after effects of the exposure.

General Leia wouldn't be the one to make a big deal of it, and would hide her suffering to be an example of strength for the Resistance, but Poe knew. And only a few members of the Resistance High Command knew. And the knowledge tore him apart inside.

"Poe?" Rose asked after a few moments of tense silence.

"We'll get the Wayfinder," Poe declared, putting on the mask of absolute confidence and the veneer of swagger that an ace fighter pilot was expected to have. "For the General. For the Resistance."

***

**The _Steadfast_ , Deep Space**

Kylo Ren stomped into his quarters, still fuming not only about Rey slipping through his fingers yet again, but his impulsive murder of General Hux. It was a rash action, and now in Enric Pryde he had a general that he didn't know as well as he would have liked, and a general he could could not intimidate. Hux was conniving and ruthless, but he was at least predictable.

He scanned the room, surveying the mess he and Rey had made. His black obsidian pillar was in shambles, and the small, bloodred berries of Kimiji were scattered across the white floor away from the pillar like blood oozing from a corpse.

Kylo's irritation at himself soon evaporated into wonder and fascination as he knelt to pick up a berry, his mind turning as he mused over the implications of how the berries had gotten there in the first place.

Their Bond was getting stronger. So strong in fact, that they were able to bring their _environment_ across the Bond. It was a fantastic phenomenon of the Force. If only their relationship was as strong as their Bond through the Force...

Suddenly, Kylo doubled over in pain, clutching his skull as if it was splitting open.

"The Jedi apprentice still lives!” Palpatine's voice shrilled in his head. Kylo's eyes bulged out of his skull. The psychic pain was one that Kylo hadn't experienced in well over a year, but one he could never forget, for it was one of Snoke's favorite punishments for him. But not even Snoke had been able to reach him at such a distance even at the apex of his powers, and a surge of fear struck through Kylo's heart as he realized just how vast the former Emperor's powers were.

“Perhaps you have betrayed me...” Palpatine continued, his voice echoing inside Kylo's brain. “Do _not_ make me turn _my_ fleet against _you_!”

“I know where she’s going,” Kylo gritted, trying with all his might to shield his thoughts. “She’ll never be a Jedi.”

“Make sure of it," Palpatine's voice raged. "Kill her!”

With tremendous effort, Kylo brought down a mental curtain to cut off their connection.

Kylo stood on his hands and knees as he caught his breath and ruminated on his psychic encounter with Palpatine. Whatever Palpatine's plans were, he seemed to be desperate to be rid of Rey.

Of course, even with the sword of Palpatine's fleet pointed at his throat, he would not allow Rey to be killed, even if he had to sacrifice the entire First Order to defy the Emperor.

Kylo stood up and tucked his helmet under his arm, his resolve stronger than ever as he left his chambers and headed to the flight bay.

Rey _will_ join him. By any means necessary. She had to. _Both_ of their lives depended on it.

***

_FLASH!_

_Countless star destroyers dotted a lightning filled sky. Below them was an endless army of stormtroopers with bloodred body armor, arms raised in allegiance to a pair of figures atop a stylized stone throne._

_Kylo Ren, the jagged red cracks of his mask like the lightning bolts that illuminated the scene._

_And sitting on his thigh, the slim figure of a young woman, face obscured with a black hood. The woman turned Ren's face to her's, and kissed the forehead of his mask with lips as red as the cracks of her lover's mask._

_The woman smiled. It was her. It was Rey. She was home at last._

_FLASH!_

A buzz at the door. Rey flinched out of her vision as the the door slid open and Finn walked in, his face etched with concern .

"Hey, girl. What's up?" asked Finn, setting down next to Rey on the cot as she shrunk away from him.

"Not now, Finn." Rey replied, head between her knees.

"C'mon, Rey," Finn cooed as he went to put his arm around her shoulders.

"Don't!" Rey snapped, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Rey. Come on! What happened back there? I- please let me in!" Finn begged, wincing as he massaged his aching side.

"I killed them," Rey whispered.

"Who?" Asked Finn.

"My parents!" Rey sobbed into her lap.

"Rey...is that what happened between you and... _him_ back there? Did he show you--" 

"Yes," Rey choked.

"Rey...he's gotta be lying to you. I mean-" Finn reasoned.

"No," Rey sighed. "He's never lied to me."

Confusion crossed Finn's face. " What're you talking about? He's never lied to you?"

"You wouldn't understand," Rey replied, looking away.

"C'mon, Rey. Try me. I'd understand. I think I'd know you enough to-" Finn began.

"People keep on telling me that they know me," Rey interrupted. "I'm afraid no one does."

"Rey...what are you saying?" begged Finn.

"He does. He understands me." Rey said simply.

"What?!" Finn cried.

"We...we have a Bond. A connection. Through the Force." Rey confessed.

"How long?" Finn asked suspiciously.

"Since we met," Rey replied. "Maybe longer than that...Look...I know what it sounds like, but-"

"I'm not saying anything! He's obviously bad news! I mean, how many times did he try to kill you?" Finn shook his head.

"He wasn't trying to kill me. He was trying to turn me." Rey corrected.

"To the Dark Side," Finn concluded.

"Yes. I've had visions...of..." Rey gasped. "Us. _Together_. On the throne of the Sith."

Finn looked her in the eyes and grabbed her shoulders, as if he was willing her to see reason. "Rey. He's using you. He doesn't--"

"He loves me. In his own twisted way, I know he loves me," Rey revealed.

"Do you? Do you love him?" Finn implored, his eyes searching.

"Yes. No...I...a part of me does. I....I just know I'm...I'm incomplete...without him."

Finn stood up. "No. Just no. I can't believe this, Rey. _Kylo Ren?!"_

"There's something there. Inside of him. Deep down, Finn." Rey begged. "There's Ben. There's Ben Solo."

"Ben?" Finn snapped. "I can't do this, Rey. I gotta go... I..I think we're close to Kef Bir."

With that, Finn left Rey's quarters, and with Rey feeling worse than before.


	14. Kef Bir

**Kef Bir. Endor System.**

Kef Bir was technically a moon of Endor, but to Rey it seemed like a whole world, and reminded her much of Ahch-To, with vast oceans interrupted by tentative patches of land, much more grassy than Ahch-To was. Settlements were nonexistent, which bode well for them being uninterrupted in their search for the Wayfinder.

From what Threepio understood (and insisted on telling them), was that Kef Bir used to be almost entirely underwater. But recent decades had seen several cataclysmic events, which had vented water into the atmosphere and caused planet-wide tectonic upheaval, which revealed more and more landmasses. He theorized that the destruction of the second Death Star was to blame, for debris from the moon-sized base not only had rained down for years, but had also collided with several nearby asteroids, which created a chain reaction of meteorite hits to the moon’s surface and atmosphere. The ocean moon had calmed in the past decade, and life was beginning to find a hold.

Chewbacca hadn’t been able to fix the landing gear and repulsors entirely by the time they arrived, but it was just enough to slow their impact a little, so that when they all exited the _Falcon_ , bruised and shell-shocked, it was to the sight of a massive streak in the damp ground, running behind them in a straight line as far as the eye could see. 

The fuselage was half buried in mud, and they’d had to exit out of the top hatch, but the _Falcon_ remained largely flightworthy, and with a few repairs and a little luck they’d be able to take off after they collected the Wayfinder.

The air smelled of salt and sun-kissed grass. Water prickled her skin, as though something was kicking up spray. The sky roiled with angry gray clouds, but everything remained bright, for the gas giant Endor provided reflected light in addition to the system’s sun.

As Chewie stayed behind to continue repairs on the _Falcon_ , the others followed Threepio's coordinates, trekking up a steep, grassy slope, the terrain testing their conditioning as their breath became hard and their legs burning by the time they reached the top of a cliff at least six hundred meters high.

Below them, a violent, steely sea stretched into fog. Enormous swells rolled back to reveal jagged black shoals, crashing back down in an explosion of white, frothy water.

Where Rey came from, water was one of the most valuable substances in the galaxy. As it turned out, it proved to be one of the most powerful. There was so much water, all in one place, carving cliffs, spearing the sky, spraying them with wetness, even at this distance.

The fog was clearing, giving them a better view of the vast sea, stretching out into the horizon. A shape began to emerge, like a mountain of metal. It was the remains of a massive ship, a space station, far larger than Rey thought possible. Its tattered hull arched out of the violent swells like an upside-down bowl, the jagged remains of its superlaser focus lens aimed at the sky. Again Rey was reminded of another place she'd seen: the starship graveyard on Jakku, though instead of oceans of sand, Kef Bir's starship graveyard was an ocean of water, and was much larger.

“The Death Star,” Finn gasped, staring at the colossal wreck. “I only ever saw holovids of it...to see it up close and personal... ”

“I don’t think General Leia had any idea this wreck was even here...” Poe said, his voice filled with wonder. “A huge chunk of the second Death Star, still intact…”

"And in that huge chunk should be the Emperor's Wayfinder," Finn reminded. "Supposedly."

“I hate to be practical, but it’s gonna take us years to find it." Poe pointed out. "I mean, how do you search something the size of a moon? Where do you even start?"

Rey stared out into the abyss. The Dark Side was strong here. She could sense it. She knew the Emperor's Wayfinder had to be inside. It called to her like a beacon. She closed her eyes and focused, going to the Dark just as she did when she was on Ahch-To, determined to find answers then, and the way to Exegol now. She was almost there...

"Heads up,” Poe warned, startling Rey out of her trance.

A young woman about Rey’s age rode toward them atop a creature that looked like a fathier with tusks, except large-boned and with much more fur. The woman had dark skin like Finn’s, and a head of black curly hair that framed her face like a halo. The only weapon she carried that they could see was a bow, made of salvaged blaster parts. Rey was impressed at her ingenuity: she would have done fine on Jakku.

"You're FN-2187!" the woman exclaimed.

At the sound of his old name, Finn raised his blaster with Poe following suit. Rey's hand cautiously rested on her lightsaber. She felt no malice, but the woman certainly looked like trouble.

"The name's Finn," declared Finn defensively, his trigger finger twitching.

The woman lowered her bow. "My designation was TZ-1719, but I chose the name Jannah."

"You're a stormtrooper?" Finn asked, his weapon still raised.

" _Was_ ," Jannah corrected. "We all were."

Finn raised his eyebrow. "We?"

Jannah signaled for unseen companions. About a dozen emerged from the surrounding brush and trees, each riding the same type of beast she and carrying a variety of weapons, some First Order blasters, some unique, jerryrigged contraptions, others simple but nonetheless deadly spears.

"We're not going to harm you," Jannah assured. "Well, I mean...we were thinking about it..but then we saw who it was."

"Yeah?" Finn replied disbelievingly.

"Finn, when you left the Order a couple years back...you have no idea what you started," Jannah began, the emotion rising in her voice. "There were just whispers of dissent at first. Small groups. Nothing significant...but when you stood up to Phasma and, and then Crait...Finn...your name became _legend_."

Finn lowered his weapon. He nodded to Poe. Rey's shoulders relaxed.

"Those of who left stuck to what we knew. Bounty hunting, mercenary work...stuff like that," Jannah began.

"Why are you here?" Finn asked.

Jannah nodded to the wreckage of the Death Star. The others followed her distant gaze.

"Scavenging?" Rey speculated.

"It's been untouched for over thirty years," Jannah explained. "Superstition said that it was still haunted by the spirit of the Emperor...that his evil still lingered. But we've seen evil elsewhere, in different forms. First Snoke. Then in Kylo Ren. Ghosts don't scare us."

Finn glanced knowingly at Rey. Rey bristled at what he was implying but held her tongue. She felt odd that she was strangely offended; there was more to Kylo Ren than what they knew, and painting him with such a broad brush was disingenuous to her. 

"You're going in there, aren't you?" Jannah asked.

“We need to get out to that wreck,” Rey replied, pointing towards the wreckage behind her. “There’s something inside we need.”

“Something that could end the war for good,” Finn added, hoping his reputation among the riders could increase their chances of help.

Jannah considered a moment, and then said, “We have fishing skimmers. I can take you there by water.”

“Do you see that water?!” Poe cried gesticulating at the churning sea.

“Not now,” Jannah agreed. “Too dangerous. We can get there at low tide. First light tomorrow.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Rey said. She turned to Poe and Finn. “Kylo Ren’s right behind us.”

“Kylo Ren?” Jannah exclaimed, exchanging a startled look with some of her fellow riders. " _He's_ coming?!"

“We don’t have time,” Rey repeated. "Don't you have a ship? From when you escaped?"

"Running repairs from a salvage run gone wrong," Jannah explained.

“Well, do we have a choice at this point?” Poe said. “Let’s get fixing the _Falcon_.” To Jannah he said, “Do you have any parts to spare?”

“It's mostly First Order regulation parts and scavenged junk, but they should fit most ships," Jannah offered.

It was unanimous. The expedition to the wreckage would be suspended until the _Falcon_ was repaired and in running condition.

They all headed down the hillside toward the _Falcon_ , except Rey, who lingered, gazing out over the ocean at the wreckage of the Death Star. To be so close…

After a moment, she forced herself to turn and follow her friends.

***

The riders had dismounted to let their creatures graze and prepare a meal for themselves. Orbaks, Jannah had called them. Finn watched with a grin as they ran about, tossing their long manes, play-fighting with their huge tusks.

With a pang of nostalgia of a bygone adventure with the love of his life, they reminded him of the fathier he and Rose had ridden on Canto Bight, except joyful and free. He smiled as an orbak sniffed at BB-8 with its large snout. It made a sort of whinnying grunting noise, which BB-8 imitated with limited success.

Finn left them to get to know one another, entering the _Falcon_ to help Chewie with repairs. Their crash landing had also damaged the Falcon’s reserve atmosphere tank, though it wasn’t yet leaking. Fixing it now would prevent a much larger problem later.

Finn got to work on the tank, glad to have something to fill the time and distract himself from worrying about Rey and her weird bond with Kylo Ren, among other things.

A while later, Jannah entered, carrying a small rez cylinder—exactly what he needed to patch the tank.

“It’s an O6, but it’ll work,” she said.

Finn took the cylinder and started to install it. “I never knew there were more like me!”

“Deserters. All of us here were stormtroopers. We mutinied at the Battle of Ansett Island. They told us to fire on civilians,” Jannah explained.

Finn winced. He knew exactly how that felt.

“We wouldn’t do it,” Jannah said. “We laid down our weapons.”

“All of you?” Finn asked, looking up at her.

She nodded. “The whole company. We had enough. We left, laid low, and then we started taking salvage jobs to stay alive."

"Still better than the First Order," Finn pointed out.

"Yes," Jannah agreed. "All thanks to your example, Finn."

Whatever Finn was about to say in response was cut off when Poe and BB-8 rushed toward them.

Finn sighed and muttered a silent curse to himself. Somehow he knew exactly what Poe had come to tell them.

“Rey’s gone,” Poe said.

As one, they all rushed from the _Falcon,_ clambering up the rise to the cliff overlooking the Death Star wreckage.

“She took the skimmer?” Jannah said in disbelief.

Finn raised his quadnocs and swept his gaze across the sea.

“I see her,” he said. “ _Way_ out there.”

He handed the quadnocs to Poe.

“What the hell’s she thinking?” Poe said.

Finn felt he knew exactly what she was thinking: she was going after Kylo Ren alone, in a misguided attempt to keep her friends from harm.

“We gotta go after her,” he said.

“We’ll fix the _Falcon_ and get out there as fast as we can,” Poe said, hurrying down the rise toward the ship.

Finn followed. “We’re going to lose her!” he protested, his voice rising. They were going to lose her, and not necessarily to death. Possibly to something worse.

Chewie and Jannah kept back from the two, saying nothing as they argued.

“She left us!” Poe snapped. “What do you want us to do? Swim?”

“She’s not herself. You don’t know what she’s fighting!" Finn reasoned.

Poe stopped and whirled around to counter him. “Oh, but you do?”

“I do. And Leia does," Finn replied.

“I’m not Leia!” yelled Poe.

“That’s for damn sure!” Finn hissed back.

Poe flinched and instantly Finn regretted going for the jugular. Before he could apologize, Poe tossed the quadnocs to him and stalked away.

Finn sighed, climbing back up the rise. He lifted the quadnocs, and gazed out across the ocean, scanning for any signs of Rey among the crashing waves.

Rey’s skiff was barely more than a dot against the turbulent water. He had no idea how she was managing to navigate that thing, or how she hadn’t capsized yet. He couldn’t exactly swim over to her—that would be suicide.

Maybe Poe was right and the only thing that could be done at this point was to repair the _Falcon_ as fast as possible.

“Finn?” came Jannah’s voice. He lowered the quadnocs and looked at her with pleading eyes. 

“There’s another skimmer,” she offered.

With a look of gratitude and a surge of hope, Finn started running.


	15. Wreckage of the Past

**Death Star II Wreckage, Kef Bir**

Before Rey had touched down on Takodana on the _Millennium Falcon,_ the only body of water she’d ever seen was the communal trough at Niima Outpost on Jakku, which she avoided at all costs unless she was dying of thirst. Then, on Ahch-To, the island she'd dream about on the nights she didn't have nightmares of abandonment and isolation, she’d always eye its vast oceans with a combination of wonder a bit of distrust. Nearly drowning in its underground caves on one of the most harrowing and disappointing excursions of her life didn't help matters, either. Still, this ocean was even worse than Rey had anticipated.

As impressed as she was with the innovated weapons of Jannah and her fellow riders, she was impressed further still at the ingenuity shown in the skimmer she stole. Two pontoons made for cutting through waves, perfect for bouncing over rough water, turning with her slightest touch of the rudder.

It took all her concentration to keep from capsizing, for the waves were enormous, creating whirlpools and eddies, the tides spraying her with explosions of salty froth. An unexpected wave ripped the skimmer's rudder from her hand, slamming the vessel sideways and nearly throwing her into the water. After a few more heart-stopping, white-knuckle instances of that, Rey soon figured out that she needed to aim for the waves instead of against them, and let the skimmer to make the climb.

Soaked and shivering, she pushed on toward the Death Star ruins, and trusted the Force to guide her to the Wayfinder. The area of the wreckage that called to her, the star-shaped chamber above, was so high and isolated...perhaps she could reach it by climbing up the inside of the structure, and be somewhat protected from the treacherous waves.

Water churned against the massive hull, pulling back to reveal access points, only to crash back and drown them in the next moment. Rey had no idea how she would be able to enter the wreck with her life intact.

She crested another wave, and her heart leapt into her throat as the skimmer dropped down the other side. She found herself too close to the wreck, and feared that her momentum was going to slam her into the hull, shatter the skimmer into a thousand pieces, break every bone in her body...Instead, her skimmer was sucked into a vast canyon of metal that seemed to stretch forever.

Her journey soon slowed as the water inside was more contained, free from the influence of the roiling tide outside the warped metal hull of the Death Star.

Compared with the open ocean, it was almost peaceful. Rey craned her neck, observing the native flying creatures that had made the wreckage their home like an artificial reef, flying in circles, crying out as they came in to land.

Rey was trepidatious, but a sense of purpose and a push from the Force urged her forward. She aimed the skimmer toward a section of wall that seemed to be reasonably scalable. She tied the skimmer down as best she could, checked that her lightsaber was still attached to her belt, that Han's blaster was holstered at her thigh, and began to climb.

It had been a while since she’d journeyed through the ruins of a downed starship. Her grip remained as strong as before, but everything was wet and slippery, rather than hot and dry like the starship ruins of Jakku. Patience was the key. Slow and deliberate, Rey. Test every hold before putting weight on it.

She was far above the surface of the water, the skimmer a bobbing speck, when she found entry into the hull.

Avoiding the sharp metal, Rey ducked inside and scooted along a canted beam to a wide shaft, where she resumed her climb. High up out of the water, it was drier here, but also darker, and she found herself having to working by feel.

Her path of handholds ended at this point, and there would be nowhere to go except across the empty shaft, where a fallen strut created a way forward. It would be an impossible leap.

Rey called on the Force, launched with all her might, sailing through the shaft across a depthless maw, miraculously landing on hands and feet.

Rey resumed her climb. Her muscles burned with lactic acid by the time the shaft opened into a vast chamber. The floor was sloped upward, slippery with water, covered in seaweed and metal detritus. Wind whistled through gaping holes in the walls. There was a chill to the air, but that wasn't why a shiver ran through Rey's body.

This place had been something once. Something important.

Ahead of her, the sloped floor led to a huge viewport, half shattered, bayed out to the sky with the Kef Bir sun shining through. Before it was a dais of some sort, containing the ruined remains of a throne.

This had been the Emperor’s throne room. Luke had fought Darth Vader--his own father and Kylo's grandfather--here, and the energy, the memory of that battle still lingered, leaving an imprint, much like the ghosts Jannah had described.

Rey closed her eyes and opened herself to the energy, sensing a cataclysm of emotion, from terror, to pain, regret, and most of all…a determination to save someone who was deeply loved. Rey stepped toward the throne.

One of the most powerful Dark Side users in history once sat on that throne, and now, over thirty years later, was looking to reclaim it.

The floor quivered beneath Rey's feet, and she leapt back just in time as a large panel dropped away. It clattered on its way down, the sounds growing ever fainter. She did not hear it land.

Rey crept along the shadowy walls, where she hoped the floor was better supported, and came to a door. It had a complicated access mechanism that marked it as valuable and significant.

This had to be the Emperor's Vault, where the Wayfinder surely was kept. She was so close!

All she had to do was get through the lock, which was easier said than done. The Death Star had laid dormant for decades, and whatever access mechanism that existed likely was rendered ineffective after so much time, much less after the explosion.

She drew her lightsaber and pierced the grey metal wall until slag melted around the blue blade, and drew a large circle in the wall. Pushing with the Force, the circular slab gave way and slammed into the vault's floor with a sound that echoed throughout the empty chamber.

Using her lightsaber as a torch, Rey stepped through the wide hole that the saber had made, the ring still burning red hot. Rey stepped on and off the slab, careful to avoid the red hot rim as she entered into the vault.

Shapes manifested around her, fragments of a person. It was her, she realized with dawning dismay. She was walking through a hall of shattered mirrors, seeing her own form reflected back at her over and over, like in the cave beneath Ahch-To.

Except here, the shattered glass only gave her jagged funhouse pieces of herself—an arm here, a leather boot there, a lock of soaking brown hair, a bruised temple. The shards of endless reflection were a puzzle that Rey ached to solve, as though doing so might make a whole person finally appear.

 _No_ , she thought with conviction. She would not allow herself to go through this again. The tease, the promise of knowledge and insight, only to come up with nothing in the end. The experience before had nearly shattered her spirit like the mirrors in this room.

Rey closed her mind to the mirrors and continued forward, toward the thing that had been calling to her since she'd laid eyes on the wreck.

The Emperor's Wayfinder hovered between black fittings, its pyramidal shape glowing soft red from within. With a second's trepidation, Rey reached for it and took it. 

The triumph was fleeting, and became burgeoning dread. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and her neck prickled with goosebumps.

She was being watched.

Slowly, still grasping the Wayfinder, Rey turned. A hooded figure materialized, glided toward her with malevolent purpose, dark cloak sweeping the ground like a shadow. The figure practically radiated power, and something else, Rey sensed, a cold and ravenous hunger.

A red lightsaber appeared in the figure’s hand, the two parallel blades chaotic and fiery like Kylo Ren's, illuminating a face as pale and gaunt as it was fierce.

Rey gasped, stumbling backward. It was her. Her face, her form. Pale and dark, wearing a Sith cloak, straight out of her visions, whole at last.

Horrified, she watched as the dark mirror Rey swung her blades apart, forming a long, fiery quarterstaff. It was the very saber she’d tentatively begun designing in her mind.

This couldn’t be real. It was a vision, nothing more.

But the Dark Rey’s steps echoed when they met the floor, and her lightstaff reeked of ozone. Her power was incredible, intoxicating.

Almost against her will, Rey began to reach with her hand.

The mirrored dark visage of Rey spoke: “Don’t be afraid of who you are.”

Rey whipped her lightsaber forward, seeking a killing blow.

Dark Rey brought her own lightstaff forward to parry within a split second. Their blades clashed, blue on red, sparking and angry.

Rey refused to lose her grasp on the Wayfinder, which gave the Dark Rey the advantage, the doppelganger pushing back with two hands on her weapon, pinning Rey’s weapon back, forcing her retreat, one step, then another. Rey slid into the throne room. Her stomach roiled and tears streamed down her face.

She was about to be defeated by her own Dark self, the side of herself that she tried to suppress.

The Dark Rey hissed, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Rey barely registered the fact that her dark mirror-self disappeared as she stumbled backward, tripping. 

She fell, and the Wayfinder slipped from her hand, sliding across the sloped floor. She scrambled after it, desperate to reach it.

Another hand got there first, larger, black-gloved. She looked up. Kylo Ren loomed, his black cape wet with ocean spray.

"Look at yourself, Rey. Trying to prove to yourself and everyone that you are a Jedi, but all you continue to do is prove that you're anything but." Kylo hissed, holding the Wayfinder at his side. "You can't go back to them now."

Rey launched herself up, glowering at him and reignited her lightsaber. "Give it to me."

Kylo seemed infuriatingly amused that she was still denying him, still denying her Dark Side. He took a step forward.

"The Dark Side is strong in you. It's in your very nature. Surrender to it." Kylo beseeched her.

"Give it. To me," Rey repeated, growling through bared teeth, pushing with the Force.

Kylo lifted the Wayfinder and stared at it. Frustration etched into his face as his grip tightened around the device.

"The only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me," Kylo declared, destroying the Wayfinder in his fist. 

Viscous remains slipped through his fingers, and he opened his palm to reveal nothing but sticky dust.

Rey watched as the obliterated remains of the Wayfinder blew away, this thing that she had come halfway across the galaxy for, risked the lives of her friends for, gone.

"Noo!!" Rey screamed, and whatever self-control Rey had was as gone as the remains of the Wayfinder, and she lunged at Kylo, swinging her lightsaber in a red-hot, primal rage.


	16. Death Star Battle

Rey attacked, and Kylo leapt out of the way of her blow, and ducked under the next.

He whirled away from her, cape flying. Vaguely, through her haze of fury, Rey realized he was not attacking her, and this enraged her further.

Rey reached, drew power from the Dark Side, her attacks increasing in speed and ferocity. When it was clear that Rey would not relent, Kylo drew his own crimson blade and blocked an errant strike.

Over and over Rey swiped, slammed, stabbed, and Kylo countered with effort, matching her ferocity.

Kylo needed to collect himself, to regroup. He stepped back, and dropped into the shaft. Without a second thought, blinded by rage, Rey leapt after him.

Rey hardly recalled traveling any distance, but somehow they ended up outside the wreckage, on a bridge of metal only meters wide.

A massive blaster turret loomed over them; beyond it and half drowning in spray was Kylo's parked TIE _Whisper_.

The ocean raged all around, but Rey pressed her attack, oblivious to the added danger.

Kylo Ren had no choice but to attack in kind, and their blades clashed again and again, the hard, repetitive impacts shivering into her shoulders, bruising her spine and hips. A familiar presence cut through Rey's awareness, distracting her. Finn was running toward her, screaming her name, leaving Jannah behind to watch their skimmer.

They could not be allowed to interfere. Kylo Ren was her's!

Rey called on the Force and thrust out with her hand, pushing Finn backward toward Jannah at the edge of the bridge-wreck. A wave crashed down on the stretch of bridge between them, cutting Finn and Jannah off from their sight. 

The Kef Bir sea was roiling now with a rising tide. As she raged against Kylo Ren, the Dark Side opened itself to her, flooding her with new power, and she found herself leaping out of the way of massive waves, then landing on her feet only to leap again.

Kylo leapt after her, using the Force to propel himself into the sky, then again to control his landings. Rey would not leave this place until one of them was dead. But her blade was not breaking through his guard. She gritted her teeth and attacked him with Force energy.

He flew backward, caught himself, landed neatly. Kylo advanced, pushing with his own Force energy. Her temples began to throb with pain, but Rey stood her ground.

Rey screamed like a feral beast and launched herself at him again. He was physically stronger. The longer they fought, the clearer it became. But she was a little faster.

Their sabers collided. He pushed.

Rey slid backward on the slick metal surface, Kylo's flaming blade gradually getting closer and closer to her face. She felt its vibration near her cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a colossal oncoming wave. The ocean was reaching high tide.

She leapt as the wave crashed down, using the Force to propel herself high and backward. Rey landed in a crouch before another gun turret. She looked around. No sign of Kylo Ren. Maybe the wave had washed him away.

No, there he was, emerging from a wall of crashing waves, his hair soaked with seawater, his face set with determination. She attacked, and he countered. But Rey was tiring, slowing. Her hand smarted with every blow. Another attack, another block, and this one knocked her off her feet.

Kylo loomed over her and raised his lightsaber, the threat implicit. Rey snarled up at him, defiant. 

***

**Resistance Base, Ajan Kloss**

There wasn't much time left. 

Leia had made the necessary preparations, named her successors. She wish she could have guided them through this battle, the battle to end all battles, but the Force had other ideas for her.

Maz Kanata was a warm presence, and with the last possession of Han's-- the medal he earned at the Battle of Yavin-- in Leia's hands, they spent much of Leia's final hours reminiscing about old adventures, about Han and Chewie, about Luke before his dark days. She spoke of Rey, Poe, Finn and Rose, and the hope they represented for the future of the Resistance and the galaxy.

But most of all she spoke of her son. She wished more than anything that she could see him again, to embrace him as an adult as she did when he was a boy.

She wanted to stroke his black hair and tell him that she still loves him, that she always will, that she understood, that she forgives him. 

And she would. It would take all of her strength, everything she had left.

"Leia, there is only one thing left to do," Maz said as she squeezed Leia's hand with her much smaller hands.

"Ben..." Leia murmured. She flashed back to all those years ago, to holding her tiny son in her arms, to the way he’d cried all the time as an infant but settled whenever he sensed that Mommy or Daddy or Uncle Chewie were near... his first steps, first words...to the first time he’d sent a toy flying across the room with the power of the Force in a toddler temper tantrum.

"I never gave up hope for him," Leia said.

"Then tell him," Maz replied softly.

Her thumb went back and forth across the cool face of Han’s medal. If Vader could become Anakin again, Kylo Ren could become Ben. Her son was tempted by the Light; she could sense it. But even if he never turned back the way Anakin had, she still loved him.

So that’s how it would be...a final act of hope, and then she would rest. 

Leia reached for the Force, let it surround her, fill her. She thought the effort would exhaust her, but she felt a momentary rush of strength and energy as she connected with every living thing. She reached deeper, and then deeper still.

With all the life, love, hope and forgiveness in her being, she called out: “Ben!”

Her last thought washed through the galaxy like a wave, and then with Maz Kanata as her witness, Leia Amidala Skywalker Organa-Solo became one with the Force.

***

**Death Star II Wreckage Site, Kef Bir**

Kylo’s Ren’s gaze suddenly became distant, and he dropped his lightsaber. "Mother?"

Rey caught it in midair, and ran him through with the stolen blade. She bared her teeth with a grimace of pure malice, and then suddenly through the Force she felt the incomparable loss, and it washed through her soul, snapping her out of her trance.

“Leia!” she cried out.

Kylo collapsed, stared up at her in agony, his chest heaving. He blinked hard, against pain, against grief, against emotions he had buried deep down for years.

Leia’s last thoughts had been of _him,_ of his father, Luke, of family. Leia, his mother, still loved him.

She had forgiven him. She had called him to the Light.

Rey blinked. She looked from Kylo's crumpled form to the lightsaber in her hand, horror dawning on her face.

She dropped the saber as if it were burning hot and rushed to Kylo's side, tears pouring down her cheeks.

"Ben!" Rey cried, stroking his face, shoulders, chest. "Ben! Oh Ben! I'm so sorry!"

Kylo's eyes searched her face, though she wasn’t certain what he was looking for. His cheeks were wet, and she couldn’t tell where ocean spray ended and tears began.

Her eyes locked onto the hole in his side, cauterized by the lightsaber blade. It wasn't bleeding, but it was still a mortal wound. If he didn't get help soon, he would die.

Finn, Poe...Jannah...her riders...they wouldn't help him. His cutthroat First Order...they feared him more than anything: his generals would probably kill him while he was down and fight amongst themselves for power.

He had nobody. Except for her. His murderer.

He closed his eyes, as if accepting the inevitable end. In his final minutes, she was here. That would be enough for him.

But not enough for her.

She had to do something. Luke's ancient Jedi texts had taught her a lot, and one of the skills that it had taught her was Kyber crystal healing. The Kyber crystal of the Skywalker saber had been split in two from her and Kylo's skirmish on the _Supremacy_ , and she had mended it.

But would it work on a being of flesh and blood? It would have to.

Rey reached out, put a hand on his chest.

His eyes flew open. He stared at her in confusion. Longing at her touch.

The air filled with a resonant hum as Rey drew on everything around her, the Living Force. The oceans, the flora and fauna, herself. She drew on their Bond, their incredible, enigmatic Bond through the Force. If it could connect them through galaxies and light years, then it could do this. She willed it.

Miraculously, Kylo’s lips parted. His breathing settled. His muscle, sinew and skin were renewed. Even the scar on his face knitted close, leaving his cheek smooth and perfect.

Rey slumped over, exhausted. She felt his astonished eyes on her, sensed his unasked questions. He was alert, now. Whole. Brimming with life and energy. But he said nothing. 

Rey herself knew she should have felt overjoyed and proud at her feat, but was instead overcome by a sense of shame and despair.

She had lost control of herself again, only for sheer dumb luck to fix her folly. 

Just the previous day, she had thought she'd killed Chewbacca by playing a game of Force tug-of-war with a transport against Kylo, only for Chewie to have been on different transport than the one she'd blown up. 

If the miracle of the Force hadn't saved him just now, Kylo would have ended up just like her parents all those years ago. Killed like Chewie almost was. Killed by her loss of control. Her impulsiveness. 

Another loved one, dead, because she couldn't control the darkness inside of her. 

Loved one? Yes, she admitted it to herself completely then. She loved him. She loved Ben Solo. From the moment he told her she was not alone and bared himself to her with a naked hand, she loved him.

And she would never hurt him again. He would be the master of his own destiny now. He would have to choose for himself between the Light and the Dark. She would not interfere. Every time she did, she would inevitably fail and put everyone else she cared about, including him, at risk. 

Caressing his face, savoring the touch of his skin for the last time, she said: "You were right. I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand."

Before he could respond, Rey grabbed the Skywalker lightsaber and hurried toward his TIE _Whisper_ parked on the wreckage, exhausted and unsteady on her feet.

She dropped into the pilot’s seat in a daze.

It took a moment to orient herself to the strange controls, but they soon made sense to her, as flight controls always did.

She took off, chancing a look back to see Kylo staring after her, still astonished. 

Finn and Jannah were motes on another island of wreckage, and she was glad to see the _Falcon_ approaching. They would be okay. As she climbed higher, a buzz and a man's voice came through the Whisper's com.

<BZZT! Escort One to Supreme Leader! We see your TIE in taking off at the wreckage site! What are your orders? BZZT!>

A stormtrooper. His TIE escorts. Rey flicked off the com.

If he chose to, he could use those TIEs to return to the Order. To face Palpatine himself, perhaps. If anybody could do it, he could. He's slain a tyrant in Snoke already. 

Her? The moment she touched the Emperor's Wayfinder in the Death Star chamber, she saw the dark, evil _creature_ she could become. In fighting Kylo, she very nearly _became_ that Dark Rey. She knew if she faced Palpatine, she could cross the point of no return, and become something more terrible than Kylo Ren at his worst--or even the Emperor himself-- and doom the rest of the galaxy.

She didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she had to get away. Rey felt like she was being ripped apart, by the weight of her failures, by her darkness, by grief.

Rey let instinct guide her as she punched the coordinates into the navicomputer. She broke the Kef Bir atmosphere and entered hyperspace, leaving all behind.


	17. The Prodigal Son Returns

**Death Star II Wreckage, Kef Bir**

Kylo Ren stood on the wreck of the Second Death Star, gazing at the ocean, watching the tide gradually recede.

Physically, he felt better than he ever had in his life. But his mind was in turmoil. He dwelled on Rey, and the events of their latest encounter.

She had lost herself to the Dark Side in that dilapidated throne room, and he gave her the final push. She became a feral animal, hellbent on killing him. He got what he wanted, or what he thought he wanted, and it almost cost him his life, and it pushed her away for what could be for good. He thought her being on the Dark Side with him was what he wanted, but what he really wanted was _her_. Just her.

He was troubled by unanswered questions. He hadn’t known such healing was possible, didn’t understand how it had been done. That was a mere curiosity though compared to the other questions that ran through his mind.

Why had his mother loved him right up until her last moment? Snoke had lied about that.

Snoke had lied about everything. All those voices in his head, torturing him throughout the years, they had promised him that a moment like this could never happen.

 _They don’t care about you. Just their precious New Republic_. They would say. _Just their precious Resistance._

All lies.

His mother had sacrificed herself to reach him. Then Rey had healed him, in spite of everything he did to her. In spite of everything he’d done with the First Order.

He had failed to kill the Light within himself because it had been all around him all along. In Rey. His mother. Even…

"Hey, kid." A voice said suddenly from behind him.

Kylo turned, and behind him, appearing exactly how he did on Starkiller almost two years ago, stood Han Solo. Kylo's eyes roamed Han's grizzled face, his well-worn jacket, the ubiquitous blaster holstered at his side.

Everything felt so real. He could even smell the gear lubricant Han Solo had always used to keep the _Falcon_ ’s converters running.

Han's eyes twinkled, full of love. "I miss you, son."

Kylo swallowed. "Your son is dead."

"No. Kylo Ren is dead," Han shook his head. "My son is alive."

"You’re just a memory," Kylo countered.

" _Your_ memory." Han replied. " _Come home,_ Ben _."_

"It’s too late. She’s gone," Kylo choked.

Han stared Kylo directly in the eyes, his gaze as intense as his son's could be. "Your mother’s gone, but what she stood for, what she fought for, and the _love_ we've always had for you... that’s not gone."

"I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it," Kylo beseeched.

Han touched Kylo’s face and smiled. "You do."

Kylo leaned into the touch, the warmth of Han's skin and the roughness of his calluses imprinted in his mind.

"Dad…" Kylo stammered, needing to say everything he felt but finding himself unable to articulate it, as if he had almost forgotten what the words sounded like after years of disuse.

Han nodded. He knew. His _father_ knew.

"I know."

With the strength of his father's love flowing through his body, Ben Solo threw his lightsaber overhead and into the raging Kif Bur sea, the symbol of his pain, his conflict, of Kylo Ren, washed away.

Ben turned, almost expecting to see his father there, but he only saw wreckage and horizon.

He closed his eyes, taking in the roar of the sea, the salty smell of the air, felt the cold mist spray on his skin.

He centered himself, and when he opened his eyes again, Ben knew what he had to do, and _would_ find the strength to do it.

He looked down at his gloved hands, taking them off, left and right, discarding them.

He unfastened his cape, and let it fall behind him.

He undid his waist belt, and then his tunic, and tossed the garments aside. Without a moment's pause, Ben set off towards a new path.

***

**Enric Pryde's Private Quarters, The _Steadfast_ , Deep Space **

Allegiant General Pryde knelt in the dark before the hologram in an area of his private quarters.

No one, not even Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, had access to this place but him, nor even knew it existed. It took effort and careful planning to erase all record of these transmissions, but for the Sith Eternal, the risk was very well worth it. His master would reward him handsomely.

“The Princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan,” said Emperor Palpatine. “But her foolish act will be in vain. Come to me on Exegol, General Pryde.”

“As I served you in the Old Wars, I serve you now.” Pryde groveled.

“Send a ship to Chandrila, birthplace of the New Republic." Palpatine said, and Pryde’s heart skipped. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. To finish what Starkiller started, and failed to complete. “Let it burn. The Republic ends. The Final Order begins. The girl will come. Her friends will follow.”

“Yes, my lord.” A flurry of complex coordinate data followed: the way to Exegol. The Emperor was trusting him with his most precious knowledge.

“Behold, the fruit of your labor,” his master said, as the data streaming toward him revealed another frequency channel. Pryde’s hand shook in anticipation as he turned to the new frequency. A different holographic image sputtered before him—a flat surface, cracked ground, lightning flashes and a dusty haze. A colossal fleet hovered in the atmosphere at a staging altitude.

So many of them. Spectacular. The Sith fleet that was his life’s work, hidden no more. As soon as the image settled, indicating he had a good lock, he gave the signal. He held his breath, waiting. A single ship separated from the rest, rising until it had achieved a safe distance, then disappeared into hyperspace.

Pryde yearned to go with it. To see its power up close. Everything he had worked for his whole life was finally coming to fruition.

He was a pragmatist at his core, though, and not even the excitement of the moment could allay his concerns. The Emperor's ships were temporarily vulnerable, unable to raise shields in the planet’s hellish climate, but there was no choice. Much of the final building, inspection, testing, and maintenance must occur in atmosphere. The Emperor’s crews would work around the clock if need be to get it done.

Pryde could have stayed forever, admiring the sight of the Sith fleet, but he had work to do. He smiled as he ended the transmission. Everything was proceeding as his Master had foreseen.

***

**Kef Bir**

The oceans had calmed from before Ben had arrived, and was able to effectively sail the jerryrigged skimmer that FN-2187...Finn and his female companion had used to board the wreckage. 

He propelled it with more than a little boost of the Force, and was soon scaling the steep rocky trail up to the cliff face.

He was sure he wouldn't encounter any of the Resistance when he got to the top, as he saw them leave with his father's ship, followed by what looked like a converted First Order cruiser.

Likely the one of the cells of stormtroopers that rebelled against the Order and escaped out into the galaxy for a new start. 

Not that they mattered to him now. He was doing much the same thing at the moment.

No, the particular stormtroopers that he did care about at the moment was his escorts, who should be a few kilometers ahead, hidden in away in a clearing where the dense trees and brush thinned.

Ben ran flat out towards the direction he knew they should be. He gave them strict orders to stay put, and not transmit or receive any outside messages unless they were directly from him first, with the threat of a painful death their punishment for disobedience and failure.

They knew his former self meant it. They were there.

When he ran into the clearing, sure enough the escorts were waiting for him. They raised their blasters at his approach, but then lowered them when they saw who it was.

Big mistake.

With the Force, he knocked their heads together with a sickening thud and then summoned a blaster to his hand.

Kylo Ren would have shot them without a second thought, but Ben Solo, inspired by Rey's efforts to heal him, decided to stay his hand and enter the TIE cockpit without murder.

He did however, circle around and blast the other TIE to a fiery wreck before taking off, just so the troopers wouldn't fly off and/or communicate with the Order and alert them of the former Supreme Leader's defection.

As Ben broke the atmosphere, he could feel a troubling ripple through the Force, as if billions of voices cried out and then were abruptly silenced. It was similar to how he felt standing on the bridge of the _Finalizer_ during the destruction of the Hosnian System.

He feared the rise of the Final Order had begun. He had the way to Exegol in his mind. 

"Hold on Rey...I'm coming back for you, sweetheart. I promise."


	18. Darkest Before the Dawn

**Resistance Base, Ajan Kloss**

Poe, Finn, Chewie, and the droids hurried down the Falcon’s ramp into the jungle base. Behind them, Jannah's ship landed, with more stormtrooper defectors on the way.

They were hopeful for a big turnout: they had spent the bulk of the return trip to base working in conjunction with Jannah to contact more defectors to the cause, and with Rey missing in action, and no Wayfinder, they could sure use good news.

The Resistance had been busy while they were away. The place was denser now from before—more consoles, more people, even a few more ships. 

With the First Order holodisk waiting for its archives to be dug into, Poe was glad to see Lieutenant Connix waiting to greet them at the bottom of the ramp. He motioned for Finn to take it out of his pack.

They had been an on-again, off-again item: the stresses of fighting the First Order put an enormous strain on their relationship. After nearly dying countless times during this mission, there were so many things he wanted to say. He was about to speak, but was silenced by the stricken expression on her face.

“Poe,” she said, her voice heavy with solemnity. “Something’s happened. Finn—”

“This can’t wait,” Finn said, reaching into his pack for the precious holodisk. 

“We gotta see the general,” Poe said.

Connix flinched. Tears welled up. “She’s gone."

Poe froze, staring at Connix, his mind refusing to parse what she’d just said.

"What?" Poe snapped. "Gone? Like 'gone off world?' On a miss-"

"She passed," swallowed Connix.

Chewie moaned, rolled his head back, dropped to his knees. Finn tried to comfort the Wookiee, but Chewie waved him off, grieving loudly.

Poe just stood there, his heart aching, his feet unmoored.

“We came so close,” Poe murmured.

“I’m sorry.” Connix hugged him. "But there's no time. You need to see this.”

She took his hand and led him to the busy hub of the open-air base.

How were they still working? Doing anything? How could they? Leia was gone, and the Resistance with her.

Numb, Poe allowed Connix to lead him a communications console Rose was hard at work at.

Rose pointed to a message. “Chandrila’s been destroyed,” she said with clenched teeth. “Completely eradicated."

“Chandrila…” Since the destruction of the Hosnian System, the remnants of the New Republic set up offices on the planet, the original home of the New Republic many years ago. Leia had even lived there with her family until duty called her away. Its destruction was a final insult to her memory by the First...now Final Order.

“How?” he choked out.

“A sustained blast to its core from a Star Destroyer," Rose replied gravely.

He shook his head. “Impossible. It would take…No.” No, no, no. “No way a Star Destroyer—”

“It was from the new Sith fleet. Out of the Unknowns.” Connix reported. “The Emperor sent the ship from Exegol."

"Does that mean all the ships in his fleet—” Poe began with dawning horror.

“Have planet-killing weapons,” Rose finished, her expression sickened and fearful. “Of course they do. Every single one…this is how he finishes it.”

Something beeped on Rose’s console, and after a few moments of brow furrowing concentration, Rose had a lock on the source.

“Listen,” she said. “It’s on every frequency.”

The console crackled and popped, and a terrible voice spoke, one not heard by the wider galaxy for over thirty years.

“The New Republic is dead. The Sith flame will burn. All worlds, surrender or die. The Final Order begins.” And then the message repeated on a loop.

Everyone turned to Poe.

“Leia made you acting general shortly before..." Rose began, but stopped. She took a deep breath. “What now?”

Connix put a hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. She said, “We await orders.”

Poe's first impulse was to refuse the appointment. He’d never run from anything in his life, but he certainly wanted to run now.

Poe couldn’t accept that Leia was gone, much less take on her job. He wasn’t ready. Maybe he’d never be ready. He’d made terrible, stupid, selfish mistakes, and those mistakes had gotten so many people killed.

He thought he’d have more time to learn. To atone for what he’d done. What had Leia been thinking, naming him acting general?

Poe thought he was past this second guessing of himself. That he learned his lesson. Leia herself had told him as much.

But maybe forgiving yourself was a much longer and much harder process than he ever realized.

Suddenly, a memory of Leia popped into his mind, crystal clear, and Poe imagined her voice so deeply and profoundly it was almost like she was standing right there next to him, placing a wise, motherly hand on his shoulder like she had done dozens of times before.

 _Failure is the greatest teacher,_ she said.

***

Finn sat alone on Rey’s cot. He couldn’t believe Leia was gone. She had accepted him so readily, hadn’t even blinked when she’d learned he was a former stormtrooper, a First Order deserter. In fact, she’d called him _brave_ , and soon considered him one of her most valuable assets. She’d set up training and education opportunities for him. Pushed him to learn, to always do better for himself. Finn knew she expected great things from him, and because of that he wanted to prove himself to her, to the whole Resistance.

He glanced at Rey's half-built lightsaber. He missed her too. She wasn't dead, he felt that for sure. But she was somewhere out there, and she was in trouble while he just sat here like a lost child, waiting for something to happen.

He hated that he felt so helpless. They were supposed to look out for each other, to watch each other's back! He knew she could take care of herself, but that still didn't stop him from worrying.

He could only hope that whatever she was going through with Kylo Ren, with the Sith and the Dark Side and all that stuff...that she'd be okay. That she'd make it out the other side in one piece.

"Hey," Rose appeared in the opening of Rey's tent, interrupting his thoughts. "I figured I'd find you here. You miss her?"

Finn chuckled darkly. "Which one? Take your pick!"

Rose say down next to him and put a comforting arm around his shoulders. He laid his head on her chest. He could hear her heartbeat, steady and true. He closed his eyes. It always brought him comfort. 

"I miss her--both of them--too," Rose cooed, stroking the small braids Finn had taken to twisting since he started growing out his thick, dark hair. 

"What do we do now?" Finn asked.

"Do you have the Wayfinder?" Rose asked.

"No," Finn replied, standing up from Rey's cot. He took the holodisk out. "We got this thing completely decoded but I can't imagine what use it would be if we don't have a way to Exegol."

Rose stood up and gently took the device in her hands. "We've come too far to give up now. Even if we don't have a way to Exegol, there could be something on that holodisk that could help us."

Finn stared at the holodisk in her hands thoughtfully. He held his hand out for Rose to take.

"Let's find Poe."

***

Poe sat in the dark, beside Leia’s bed, empty with nothing but her clothes, left behind. They hadn't been removed yet, and remained untouched like a grave marker. 

Poe could still smell the remnants of Leia's perfume wafting from the clothes, and he closed his eyes, imagining her sitting across from him with open ears and an open heart like she had done countless times before over the years.

“I gotta tell you,” he told her. “I don’t know how to do this. What you did…I’m not ready.”

“Who ever is?” came a voice from the shadows, and Poe turned. It was Maz Kanata, the low light glinting off the large goggles that rested on her forehead as she stepped into view.

“Leia. Luke. Han. Hera. Rex...,” Maz said with a warm smile. “So many heroes. So many to name...”

Poe stepped toward her, the wise old alien reaching only his waist.

According to Connix, Maz had been with her until her very last moments, and watched as her body transformed into the Force. Poe hardly understood the intricacies of the Force, and how such a phenomenon was even possible, but as he knew with Leia, and from what he's seen from those who wielded the Force, like Kylo Ren, Rey and Luke Skywalker, anything was possible.

“How did they do it?” Poe asked. “How did they defeat an Empire with almost nothing?”

Maz was silent for a long moment, her gaze distant and ancient face thoughtful.

"They had each other. They were _friends,_ " Maz finally replied, enunciating every word. "And more than anything, they had _hope_."

A light dawned in Poe’s mind. Hope. _Rebellions are built on hope_.

The only way they were going to make it through this war was together.

"Alright. Let's find Finn."


	19. Ahch-To

**Luke Skywalker's Island. Ahch-To.**

Rey tore through the atmosphere of Ahch-To at full speed the moment she exited hyperspace. Of course her instincts brought her here. The final resting place of the last Jedi.

She could end it all here, she thought as she rapidly approached the island that had haunted her dreams for years prior, and for many months since she finally came to it the year prior.

She could crash into the rocks. It would be quick. Painless. She wouldn't feel a thing.

The island was so close...no. It would be too easy. She didn't deserve to end it that quickly. She pulled up at the last second and the bottoms of the forward-pointed wings scraped across the rocky ground, sending up sparks, the TIE's afterburners scorching the ground, setting fire to the grass and driftwood behind it.

Stopping with a lurch, Rey nearly slammed into the dashboard before stopping herself with her hands.

She took a deep breath and opened the cockpit, keeping it open as she leapt out into the muggy island air.

Beside her, a ragged porg shook its feathers, cawing at her in irritation and alarm. She ignored it and looked around in a daze.

She finally understood why Luke had come here, why he’d given up everything and taken up the life of a hermit. Rey was never going back. She would never hurt anyone she cared about ever again.

She would live out whatever years she had left right here. The galaxy was better off without her. Belonging had been a fleeting fancy. She was meant to be alone.

The fire from the afterburner began to die down and smolder from the humidity. Rey gingerly approached it, black smoke fouling her lungs, and she bent down to pick up a piece of burning driftwood, holding it like a torch.

She stared at the torch and then the open cockpit of the TIE as she circled back around. Luke's submerged X-Wing came to mind. Picked through for scraps and waterlogged, it now served as an artificial reef for the Ahch-To's aquatic fauna. It would never fly again.

Just like the TIE before her would never fly again, she decided.

Maybe she should light it on fire, and watch it burn from the inside out until it was empty shell... much like herself. Yes. Poetic justice.

As Rey reared back to heave the torch into cockpit of the TIE Whisper, she felt a touch on her shoulder.

Not quite a physical touch, but a feeling, as if the Force itself had manifested.

"Hey kid. Are you sure you want to do that?" A familiar voice asked.

Rey turned, still clutching the torch. "Master Skywalker!"

The semi-transparent form of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker stood before her, limned in a glowing, ghostly light, arms out in a half bow. "In the flesh...er, well, you know what I mean."

"You were right, Master Skywalker. The Jedi do need to end. The legacy of the Jedi has always been one of failure," Rey explained, raising the torch over her shoulder again. "I'm no exception."

"The legacy of the Jedi has been one of failure," Luke agreed, nodding. "But the thing about failure is how you learn from it and evolve to avoid those same mistakes. Perhaps the Jedi Order does not need to die...it just needs to become something _better_."

"I can't make it better, Master Skywalker," Rey replied, avoiding Luke's eyes.

"Why not?" Luke asked gently.

Rey shook her head in despair. "Every time I try to make things better...I end up making things worse. I lose myself...to the Dark Side and I...hurt the ones I love. My parents...Chewie....Ben...perhaps I deserve to be alone."

Luke calmly lifted his hand for her to stop, and gestured to Rey to follow him.

Rey stood defiant, determined to see through her self-imposed exile for the good of the galaxy. "It's the only way, Master. I'll only make things worse,"

"Please, Rey," Luke implored. "Trust me: this is not the way."

She did, finally casting aside the torch into the wet rock. Luke then led her up the rocky outcrop to his old hut overlooking the island and the endless expanse of the Ahch-To sea. It was still in good condition, maintained by the Lanai caretakers in his absence.

Luke pointed toward a loose brick in the wall. “In there,” he explained.

Rey was confused, but nevertheless did what Luke had asked. Sure enough, the brick eased out, revealing a hidden lightsaber wrapped in a leather pouch. She picked it up and examined it. "Is this-"

"Mine. Yes," Luke confirmed.

"Rey, I too loved Ben, and I too failed him.," Luke gestured to the lightsaber. "I raised my lightsaber to a boy that I should have have tried to save, instead of raising it the abomination that was plaguing his mind... In my despair I came here to end my life with the very same weapon I nearly ended his life with."

Rey was shocked. "Master Luke!"

"Yes," Luke replied sadly. "But in the end I could not do it, and I hid it away. So I spent eight years here, living everyday with regret."

"Master Luke, I don't see--" Rey began.

"For eight years, because because of one dark moment, one mistake, I willingly stood by as the Dark Side and the First Order grew in power. Please don't repeat the same mistake I did," Luke lifted her hands so that the lightsaber was level with her gaze. "Take my lightsaber. Do with it what I should have done."

Rey sighed. "It's too late. Time is running out and...I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I face Palpatine, that I will fail. That I will turn to the Dark Side and doom all of those I love. "

"It's never too late, Rey," Luke assured. "It wasn't too late for my father, when he turned on the Emperor. It wasn't too late for me to look past myself and the failures of the Jedi to give the Resistance another day to live and fight. I died believing that it wasn't too late for Ben, and I believe now that it's not too late for _you_."

Luke took Rey's face in his ghostly hands when she shook her head again.

"See, The Jedi and the Sith have always talked about _turning_. It’s really not about being on one side or the other. It’s about where you’re headed," Luke said. "It's about your choices, it's what you do in the moments that matter most. That, Rey, is your final lesson."

Rey stared at Luke's lightsaber for several moments before turning it on. An emerald blade hummed to life, and she waved it around, testing it in her hands, deep in thought.

Rey thought of the Dark Rey she encountered in the cave. How her first thought was to attack. To destroy her Dark Side. It was here she realized the depth of her folly. In attempting to destroy her Dark Side, she gave it power, and it consumed her. She could not face the Dark Side in Palpatine without first facing the Dark Side within herself, and _accepting_ it. Acknowledge its presence as a part of her, and then _let go_. Let go of the shame and burden of failure, and do better the next time.

She loved her newfound family. Finn. Poe. Chewie. Rose. BB8 and Threepio.

She loved Ben Solo, the once-enemy who pulled her from the deepest pit of despair and assured her that she wasn't alone. With whom she shared an incredible bond through the Force, enhancing her natural Force sensitivity and abilities to incredible levels.

Abilities that would be wasted on self-important despair and exile. Staying here during the galaxy's darkest hour would insult the memories of those who gave so much to her, who took her in, a nobody urchin from the desert. Han Solo. Leia Organa.

It would insult the memory of the Jedi and the Rebels before her who gave so much to the galaxy because they had the ability and the will to use those abilities to fight tyranny and injustice.

And she couldn't do it alone. No more running in, unprepared, lightsaber blazing. She would need the help of friends.

Rey deactivated the lightsaber and turned to Luke, who smiled warmly at her.

Rey smiled back. She knew what she had to do.


	20. Last Stand of the Resistance

**Resistance Base. Ajan Kloss.**

The decrypted holodisk was hooked into Rose's computer console, Poe stood with Finn and Rose, staring impatiently at it, waiting for the information he hoped would come.

A few strides away, Threepio was engaged in an animated conversation with R2-D2, talking at length about their recent mission as Artoo beeped and chirped disbelievingly, while a handful of other technicians and engineers checked last minute status updates and data readings.

“There!” Finn pointed. After sifting through the archives, they found what they were looking for. Information flashed across the console screen: maps, diagrams, navigational codes, atmospheric data, even asset distribution, tower logistics. The works.

He would have to personally thank whoever got their hands on this level of intel. It had to have come from someone with the absolute highest level of security clearance. Someone who had been on Exegol itself. From what he understood, the Sith Eternal were that secretive. Only the Supreme Leader could have had that level of clearance.

 _Supreme Leader_...Could it be? No. Impossible. Finn kept the fleeting idea to himself.

Rose exchanged an an excited glance with Finn and Poe. “Everything you ever wanted to know for an air strike on Exegol.”

“Except how to get there,” Poe said, frustrated. “You see these atmo readings?”

Rose nodded. “A mess. Look at those magnetic cross fields.”

Finn leaned closer. “Gravity wells? Solar winds?” he said in a disbelieving voice.

Which worried Finn. If Rose, their top engineer thought Exegol’s atmosphere presented an insurmountable obstacle, their mission was doomed before it had begun.

“How can their fleet even take off in that?” Poe said.

Which begged the question: How could they land in that? Fight in that? There had to be a way…

"Poe!" came Connix's voice. “We're getting a transmission from from a First Order craft!"

The hurried over to a holoprojected subspace radar map that Connix led them to. A blip showed as IN FLIGHT, bearing the name TIE/wi Interceptor Series _Whisper_.

He stepped back, blinking in disbelief. He turned to Finn. “It's Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter. It's got to be. The _Whisper_ series were only a prototype when I was in the Order!"

Poe gaped at him.

“It’s transmitting course-marker signals,” Threepio said, waddling his golden frame over to the holovid display, quickly deciphering the complicated data.“On its way to the Unknown Regions!”

"Why would--" Poe began.

"It could be Rey," Finn's eyes widened. We saw a TIE take off on Kef Bir. It could be her."

"It could be Kylo Ren," Poe warned. "It could be a trap."

"We're going to have our backs against the wall either way, Poe," Rose reasoned. "At least on Exegol we could have a brief window of advantage if we can strike before they leave the planet."

Finn thought of his suspicions again. Whoever it was...Rey or Kylo Ren...he decided to trust them. He had to.

"C'mon bro," Finn pressed. "It's the only lead we got right now."

Poe considered, brow furrowed, weighing his options. "Alright. Alright. Tell me what you're thinking."

***

Pilots and ground crew, mechanics and officers, all rushed toward the _Tantive IV_. Poe had called a mandatory briefing, and Rose had quickly rigged a holodisplay under the blockade runner’s giant belly. It sat atop cargo cases, and the image flickered in and out, but it would have to do.

Finn had the floor. "First off I'd like to thank those stormtrooper defectors who joined us today. I guess I'm one of the primary reasons that they're here now, and I'd like to address that."

The Resistance parted, and allowed the defected stormtroopers to step up, with Jannah front and center.

There were more than he expected, but far less than he hoped, all silent, waiting on his every word. He scanned the crowd. Some wore stripped down stormtrooper armor in various states of completion, personalized with paint jobs or emblems, various accessories. Some, like Jannah's riders, had foregone armor for the simple yet durable fabric clothing, all terrain wear.

Poe nodded to him and Rose gave him a reassuring squeeze of his hand before he stepped up to address them.

Finn's throat felt dry. He licked his lips and swallowed as he scanned their expectant faces.

"I, uh, I'm not sure what you expected when you came here. Okay? I'm not good at speeches. I wasn't some big bad super trooper in the First Order. I was a janitor. A kriffing mop jockey," Finn glanced at Poe and Rose, whose faces were pale and confused.

 _"What are you doing dummy?!"_ Rose hissed under her breath.

"I left the Order because it was the right thing to do," Finn continued, his voice swelling with strength. "Everything I've done since was because it was the right thing to."

Finn paused. "I'm going into a battle where the odds are stacked against me because it's _the right thing to do._ All I can do is ask for you to do the same. For those who are still trapped in the armor. For those who don't know who they are. For those who don't have a name. For our fathers, our mothers, our brothers and sisters somewhere out there, waiting everyday for a child who may never come back to them. The cycle ends today. No more torn families! No more numbers! The nameless will be named! The Final Order will live their final day! They’ve taken enough of us. Now we take the war to them!”

The hangar roared in approval, Resistance and trooper alike. Poe clapped him on the back, and Rose gave him a kiss.

"I'm proud of you," she mouthed.

Finn beamed. "It's all yours, guys."

Rose nodded and stepped up. She waited until the cheers died down before she spoke. “As long as those Star Destroyers are on Exegol, we can hit them."

“Hit them how?” Commander D’Acy asked. Her wife, Lieutenant Wrobie Tyce, would be flying an X-Wing in the thick of battle. She wanted an airtight plan.

“They can’t activate their shields until they leave atmosphere,” Rose explained.

“Which isn’t easy on Exegol,” Poe added. “Ships that size need help taking off; nav can’t tell which way’s up out there.”

D'Acy asked, “So how do the ships take off?”

“They use a signal from a navigation tower. Like this one.” Rose flipped the holodisplay to a new image: an obelisk-like tower jutting from the flat ground, spreading its array like a metal flower opening its petals.

“Except they won’t,” Poe said. “Because air team’s gonna find the tower, and a ground team led by Finn's gonna blast it."

“Ground team?” Wexley asked. He was under the impression that it was going to be a strict aerial dogfight.

"Once the tower’s down, their fleet is stuck in atmo. For just minutes. No shields, no way out," Poe explained. "It'd be tough to ask anyone to volunteer, but--"

"We'll do it," Jannah spoke up after a few moments of deliberation between her fellow riders. "We do our best fighting on the ground."

A trooper from another faction spoke up. "And we can provide air cover. Keep the TIEs off 'em."

Finn smiled. "It would be an honor."

"The honor is ours," Jannah replied.

“My team’s been analyzing the Sith Star Destroyers,” Rose continued. “In order to kill a planet with those cannons, they need an enormous power source.”

“They’re drawing on the main reactors!” Wexley realized.

Rose nodded. “We think hitting a cannon might take down the whole ship.”

“That’s our chance,” said Finn.

“Shields or no shields,” Wexley cut in. “Star Destroyers aren’t target practice. Not for single fighters.”

“We’d be no more than bugs to them,” Connix agreed.

Snap and Connix had a point.

Wexley leaned forward. “We need to do some Holdo maneuvers,” he said. “Do some real damage.”

Before Poe could answer that they couldn’t afford to sacrifice anyone, Finn jumped in with “C’mon man, that move was one in a million. Fighters and freighters can take out their cannons if there are enough of us.”

Poe shook his head. Freighters were now considered war-class ships? He supposed it didn’t matter. Getting their fleet ready was his job, now that Leia was gone. He would do whatever he had to do to get them all ready to fight.

“There aren’t enough of us!” Nien Nunb protested, in his native Sullustese.

“We’ve got friends out there. We're sending coordinates to them now. _They will come,"_ Poe assured.

Everyone started to protest: they all remembered Crait as painfully as he did.

“They will!" Poe insisted over the protests. "The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. We’re not alone. Good people will fight if we lead them.”

“Leia never gave up,” Finn said. “And neither will we. We’re gonna show them we’re not afraid.”

“What our mothers and fathers fought for,” Poe said, thinking of his own parents, Shara Bey and Kes Dameron, who had sacrificed so much to fight for the Rebel Alliance. “We will not let it die. Not today. Today we make our last stand. For the galaxy, for Leia. For everyone we’ve lost.”

“May the Force be with us!” Rose said, from between Finn and Poe, with all the feeling in her body.

“May the Force be with us!” Connix repeated.

Then several called out at once: “May the Force be with us!”


	21. The Emperor's Final Order

**Exegol.**

Rey exited hyperspace. The planet Exegol was finally before her, shrouded with dark clouds that flashed bright with lightning. The instruments on her console beeped warnings about the approaching atmosphere. She ignored them, angling downward into the clouds, grateful to be piloting Ben's TIE. Rey had needed its added stabilizers to fly Exegol’s unfriendly skies.

The _Whisper_ dipped below the cloud line and Rey gasped. The Sith fleet spread out in a rigid formation before her, even more vast than her visions had led her to believe, their hulls shining bright in relief against the perpetual storm, numbers stretching as far as her eyes could see. The vessels were based on Destroyers of an older model, from the days of the Galactic Empire, but these Sith Star Destroyers were so much bigger than those. Hopefully the Resistance got the coordinates. Even if she could defeat Palpatine, she couldn't hope to face the entire Final Order by herself.

The _Whisper_ wobbled a little from a localized gravity well, but she compensated quickly, and cruised to an altitude considerably below the Sith fleet. Rey was counting on Exegol's atmospheric anomalies and the _Whisper_ 's stealth technology to confuse the Destroyers’ sensors and keep them from noticing her ship.

Luckily, she was on the ground moments later. The air was hot and dusty, the soil fissured with dryness.

A dark building, the Citadel, breached the clouds ahead of her, and for the briefest moment, Rey considered giving in to the terror that was building inside of her, clawing at the pit of her stomach like a trapped animal.

Such malevolence radiated from the building that there was no question who--or what-- she would find inside. Rey nevertheless pressed on. She had a job to do. She stepped beneath a massive monolith that seemed to hover in the air.

Rey removed the Skywalker saber from her belt and ignited it. Its blue blade was familiar and strangely reassuring, and she needed it to allay her nerves.

She startled a bit when the section of floor she stood on detached from the rest and began to descend. She looked around, alert to any sight or sound, but all was as silent as death. Then a rumble sounded, too distant to identify.

The lift settled, and Rey gingerly stepped off. She raised her weapon--both to see and for a sense of security--and its blue light snagged on huge stone faces, sparking with electricity. She chanced a guess that the statues commemorated Sith Lords who had come before. This place of evil must have been here for centuries, maybe millennia, for the air was heavy with the weight of time and many dark secrets.

Rey was suddenly aware that she was not alone. Figures scurried in the shadows, but she sensed no immediate threat from them, so she continued on.

A few more steps took her past a dizzying array of lab equipment—monitors, tubes, some kind of tank, all empty and abandoned.

Just like the planet’s surface, the floor here contained fissures, and light flashed deep down—Rey couldn’t tell how deep—as though Exegol’s entire crust had formed around a core of electricity.

Rey came to a narrow stone corridor, and her gaze was pulled forward.

A chill goosebumped the flesh of her arms and raced down her spine, because resting upon a dais was a shape from her visions. A stone chair with a halo of spikes curving up and around it. The throne of the Sith.

Rey stepped toward the dais. The rumble grew louder. The corridor broke open into an expansive amphitheater as massive as a hollowed-out mountain, brimming with robed figures like bees on a hive. There were thousands of them, faceless in the dark distance, but pulsing with zealotry. Religious disciples, awaiting the return of the Sith.

The Sith Eternal.

As she approached, the rumbling shifted and became a hiss like an oversized serpent ready to strike. 

“Perhaps I was mistaken in attempting for your life, young Rey,” came a voice from her nightmares, deep, resonant, and slow, as though he had all the time in the galaxy.

Rey turned toward the dark voice. A robed figure materialized, suspended from strange machinery. Rey's grip on the lightsaber tightened when she saw his face. He was a ghastly sight, with red-rimmed eyes, his skin barely clinging to his skeletal form, the flesh disintegrating into oozing sores. One of his hands had even half rotted away.

It was the Emperor. Darth Sidious. Palpatine, his spirit trapped in an artificial form, his power too devastating to contain.

"I have been watching your journey for my Wayfinder with great interest... and I believe now that I have found my true successor in _you_ ," Palpatine continued, the weight of his voice thundering in Rey's skull.

The ghoul was repulsive, but Rey's feet twitched toward him. She could not look away. There was something terrifyingly compelling about him.

"Ben Solo, like his uncle and grandfather before him, have proven too drawn to the Light to achieve their true potential...but _you_...the Dark Side comes _sssooo_ naturally. It calls to you. It is where you draw your strength!" exclaimed Palpatine triumphantly. His voice turned darker still. “You will accept your calling and take this throne as a Sith...or you will _die_ ,”

Several figures stepped forward, draped in crimson, similar to Snoke’s Praetorian Guard, which she and Kylo had defeated together just a year earlier. Rey had a feeling these guards would prove more formidable adversaries.

She forced herself to sound strong, to back away from the Emperor. “I haven’t come to lead the Sith. I’ve come to end them.”

“As a Jedi,” the Emperor said, his voice oozing contempt like the sores on his skin.

Rey snarled defiantly at him. "Yes!"

"You are nobody!" spat Palpatine in an angry voice that genuinely terrified Rey. "You are nothing but a lost little orphan girl _playing_ Jedi!"

Rey stumbled back, nearly falling on her butt before she caught herself, glaring up at the Emperor, wearing a mask of confidence once more. 

“Yessss....you see? You may deny it...but your fear. Your hatred. Your anger. Qualities of a _Sith,"_ a low rumble emanated from deep within Palpatine's throat. "You want to kill me. _That is what I want!_ Kill me and the spirit of the Sith will pass into you. We will be one in the Dark Side of the Force!”

The cultists roared their approval.

***

The _Millennium Falcon_ exited hyperspace, with Poe at the helm, Chewbacca in the co-pilot's seat, and Rose behind them with a portable computer console to track the Final Order navigational signals.

Poe's old droid buddy, BB8, would be on hand to run repairs on this old freighter if the need arose. He wouldn't take any chances.

Poe usually would've have taken his trusty X-Wing into battle, but his reasons for taking the _Falcon_ were several-fold. Over its decades of service, the old freighter had proven capable in nearly every single hostile environment it had flown in, and he knew Exegol would not be different. The _Millennium Falcon_ had also proven itself to be a recognizable symbol to both the Resistance and the First Order, so he had hoped he could use it to rally his troops and hopefully, and he used the phrase loosely, draw fire away from them. His partnership with Chewie had saved them days before when they hyperspace skipped with a squadron of TIEs chasing them, so he was relying on that piloting chemistry to save them again.

Beside him, his tiny squadron popped into view—the _Tantive IV_ , the modified cruiser of Jannah's that Finn was landing in, plus several more fighters.

They dived into the cloud cover, and nearly collided with the Sith fleet. Someone gasped into their comm. Their triangle-shaped hulls were enormous, but they seemed to grow ever smaller as their number stretched far into the dark and stormy horizon.

"Welcome to Exegol," Poe said dryly into the comm. "What a kriffing dung heap!"

It was the deadest, ugliest thing he’d seen in a long while, and he wondered if it had always been this way, or if building a colossal fleet of Star Destroyers here had killed the place.

<Great dark seas!> Aftab Ackbar exclaimed. Ackbar hoped he could measure up to the legacy of his late father, the legendary Mon Calamari Admiral Gial Ackbar. <Look at that!>

Ackbar angled his Y-wing closer to Poe, determined to keep his new acting general alive at any cost. He could not bear another loss like that of his father.

<No sign of our promised allies...> Snap Wexley growled from his X-wing.

“Just find that navigation tower,” Poe ordered. “Help will be here by the time we take it down!”

 _Please, oh please be here by the time we take it down..._ Poe prayed to himself. He nodded to Chewie and Rose and the led the ragtag squadron forward.

***

Newly appointed Supreme Leader of the First Order Enric Pryde stood on the bridge of the _Steadfast_ , looking through the viewport at the rest of the Sith Fleet. They held formation slightly above everyone else, as the Sith Destroyers began to rise. The fleet was a beautiful sight to behold. Together, they were going to conquer an entire galaxy.

“All ships rise to deployment altitude,” he ordered.

“We have Resistance craft incoming, Supreme Leader!” Admiral Griss reported briskly.

“Order the use of the short-range defense cannons,” Pryde replied, almost disinterested. “Scatter-fire pattern.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Griss turned to the crew. “Ready the defense cannons!”

Pryde frowned as more spacecraft popped out of hyperspace all around them, even more than the Sith Destroyer _Derriphan_ had initially reported. 

How incompetent. Captain Chesille Sabrond of the _Derriphan_ could destroy a defenseless planet like Chandrila with her Destroyer, but couldn't accurately determine the enemy's number. The Sith Eternal had taught her ruthlessness, but not arithmetic, it seemed. He'll deal with her later.

For now, Pryde's attention was focused on the Resistance. They had managed to cobble together a small fleet, and it would be one he certainly wouldn’t underestimate. Their ships were like a swarm of bloodsucking insects. Tiny and annoying yes, but relentless and formidable in large enough numbers until they’d been properly squashed. 

“How did they manage to get here?” Admiral Griss wondered aloud.

Pryde muttered under his breath, considering. The short-range defense cannons wouldn’t be enough to squish this swarm of bugs.

Pryde addressed the bridge. “I need another transmission channel to the fleet!”

It took a few moments. Exegol’s atmosphere made fleet-wide transmissions tricky and also interfered with their sensors, which meant they would need visual confirmation to eliminate the enemy.

He would have to scramble fighters. Pryde would do whatever he had to do, use whatever resources at his disposal, to end this final, futile act of rebellion.

“You're on, Supreme Leader,” said his communications officer.

Pryde cleared his throat and said, “Nothing will stop the Final Order fleet from ascending! Scramble fighters! Cannons: Fire at will!”


	22. Desperate Measures

Poe banked the _Falcon_ hard as thousands of simultaneous cannon blasts lit up the sky like a deadly fireworks display.

To his left, a fighter was stripped of its hull by a blast, debris flying off in all directions, until it finally exploded into a fireball. A quick glance around showed that they’d lost several fighters in just that first volley, and with sensors so unreliable, Poe had no idea who.

 _That's the price of leadership,_ thought Poe bitterly _. We don't have the luxury of grief or regret. Finishing this mission is all that matters._

“Stay at their altitude!” he yelled into his headset. “They can’t fire on us without hitting each other.”

Following Poe’s lead, the squadron dived hard, dodging blasts all the way, toward the endless sea of Destroyers. They swooped into the corridors created by the ships’ hulls, almost daring them to fire.

<Incoming TIEs!> Snap Wexley warned, and Poe was glad to hear his voice. That was at least one survivor confirmed.

His relief was short-lived. _Hundreds_ of Sith TIEs screamed toward them like a flock of large mechanical birds-of-prey, with wicked red and black lines across razor-sharp wings, raining fire.

***

Finn stared through his quadnocs inside the crowded cabin as Jannah's cruiser drove toward the planet’s surface. R2-D2 beeped impatiently at his heels, the headstrong astromech anxious to be of service on the battlefield again. Some Resistance volunteers filled the ranks, and talked shop with their former enemies as they killed time.

The quiet before battle on a First Order ship, even a repurposed one, reminded him of the fateful day on Jakku a year or so back where he made the decision to rebel against the Order, but instead of coming to massacre innocents, they were looking to strike a serious blow to the Order. 

He glanced across the crowded cabin at Jannah, and their eyes locked. She was probably thinking the same thing he was.

Finn flinched as a Sith TIE suddenly dived toward them, but the cruiser's guns blasted it out of the sky.

“Heads up,” shouted the pilot to them. A tall, imposing structure loomed before them in the distance, a gleaming silver.

“I see it!” Finn yelled. “I’ve got a visual on the nav tower!”

<Finn!> Rose instructed from the _Falcon_. <Prep to unload the ground team at the base of the tower.>

***

Pryde was pleased. His Sith fleet already destroyed numerous Resistance fighters. The remaining enemy ships were a skeleton squadron, incapable of mounting any real offensive.

“Supreme Leader ,” reported his comm officer. “They’re targeting the navigation tower. So the fleet can’t deploy.”

Admiral Griss gasped. “We need to get those Destroyers out of there.”

Fortunately, Pryde always had a backup plan. That's why he was The Emperor's hand-chosen Supreme Leader.

“Switch over the source of the signal to this ship,” he ordered lazily. “We’ll guide the fleet out ourselves.”

***

A light flashed atop the tower as Finn and his crew approached in Jannah's cruiser, which he found out was named _The Redemption_. It was an appropriate name. He was sure many of the former stormtroopers here had consciences to clear.

Suddenly, the light of the tower went off and stayed off. Watching it through his quadnocs, Finn got a bad feeling.

Jannah approached his shoulder. “Finn, we’re good to go."

“Thanks for doing this,” he told her.

She started to say something, but an alarm beeped in the cockpit. Rose's voice filtered in over the comm. <The navigation tower!> she said. <It’s been deactivated!>

“What?” Finn exclaimed.

<They’re not transmitting from that tower anymore!> Rose clarified.

<The ships need that signal!> came Snap’s voice over the comm. <It’s got to be coming from somewhere.>

<I've tracked the signal to the command ship!> Rose announced after a few tense moments. <It's a First Order Star Destroyer, the only one not part of the Sith fleet!>

<That's gotta be the _Steadfast_...> Poe added with a sigh. <Makes sense.>

"That makes it a target!" Finn had a crazy idea. “That’s where we drop!”

<You wanna launch a ground invasion on a Star Destroyer?!> Rose asked, incredulous.

Finn would have atmosphere, gravity, and a unit of pissed off, well-trained former stormtroopers ready for a little revenge. What more did he need?

“Well, I don’t exactly want to,” Finn said. “But that ship’s nav system will be defended from air attacks. If you give us cover to land, we can get to it. And take it out. We gotta keep that fleet here until help arrives!”

Finn leaned over the pilot’s shoulder and pointed. “The command ship. That’s our landing zone.”

As he and Jannah hurried toward the rear hold to explain the plan to the rest of the troops, he heard Poe’s voice over the comm.

<You heard him. All wings, cover that cruiser!>

***

Finn could only imagine what the bridge of the _Steadfast_ thought as _The Redemption_ descended towards them. Was it a suicide run? Well yes, but they weren't pulling a Holdo maneuver. He could imagine the call to jam the speeders. But they weren't riding speeders, either.

Finn and Jannah led the cavalry charge of nearly two dozen orbak riders down the ramp of _The Redemption_ and onto the hull of the _Steadfast_. He was glad he was able to get the extra support: he would need all the help he could get to pull this crazy idea off.

The orbaks had been cooped up for hours, and they ran with joyful abandon, eating up distance at a blazing speed.

Artoo kept pace, flying beside Finn with his rockets.

“Doing great, buddy!” Finn called down to him. He tossed a quick glance over his shoulder to check on his team.

So far, so good. Ahead of them, a Sith troop carrier landed and spit out dozens of the crimson-clad troopers. They spread out in formation and began firing. Finn’s rear team fired back, providing them some cover. One stormtrooper went down right away from Jannah's blaster-bow.

He reached into the munitions bag hanging from the saddle. Homemade explosives, cobbled together with what the company could find on Kef Bir, but effective nonetheless.

Finn sighted a squad of troopers, took aim, and tossed the bomb. It exploded into fire and black dust, knocking several Sith Troopers backward.

Wasting little time, Finn and Jannah grabbed their bags of explosives, jumped from their orbaks, and sprinted along the hull with Artoo jetting by beside them. 

Another Final Order troop lander touched down on the surface nearby. The ramp descended and out poured another company of Sith Troopers, who immediately began firing.

Several of them engaged red jetpacks, which lifted them into the air so they could fire from a superior vantage point.

"Damn it!" Finn was getting really tired of jet troopers. He fired back, most of his shots going wide, as he and Jannah pressed forward.

They had to make this happen fast. More trooper carriers would come. They would be overwhelmed in minutes. Or worse, the ship could simply leave the atmosphere, instantly killing them all.

The orbak riders deployed around them and aimed a barrage of covering fire at the jet troopers.

Finn and Jannah reached the nav deck. Ahead was a bunker-like structure, built out from the hull to prevent interference from interior ship frequencies.

“This is it,” Finn yelled. “Artoo, do your thing!”

The old droid extended a pilex driver and unscrewed a panel. Finn began placing explosives as Jannah fired shot after shot with her bow, covering them. One shot hit a jet trooper, who spun up into the air, missiled into an oncoming TIE, and sent it crashing onto the Destroyer’s surface.

"Good shot!" congratulated Finn.

"Never mind me, Finn!" Jannah yelled as loud as she could over the explosions and roaring wind. "Just do what you came to do!"

“Almost there!" Finn said, working as fast as he could.

***

**The Sith Eternal Citadel.**

“The time has come!” the Emperor boomed. As one, thousands of disciples fell to their knees, chanting something in a language Rey had never heard.

Palpatine’s eyes widened with zeal. “With your anger, you will take my life, and you will ascend. As I did, when I killed my master, Darth Plagueis.”

He grinned, showing jagged gray teeth and oozing red gums. “Now. Raise your saber and strike me down.”

Rey shook her head, defiant. “All you want is for me to hate. But I won’t. Not even you. I only _pity_ you. Your Empire will rot like you are now!"

"Insolent wench! Weak! Like Ben Solo. Like all of his ilk!” snarled Palpatine.

Rey stood firm. She refused to cower. "They were strong. They saw you for the monster you are.”

The Emperor scrutinized her. “I’ve made this very proposal before. But on that unfortunate day, Luke Skywalker had his foolish father to save him. You have _nobody_.”

The cavernous room shook. Flashing light poured down as a vast stone ceiling opened, revealing Star Destroyers silhouetted against the stormy, lightning-filled sky. The Resistance fighters were gnats in comparison, darting in and out, dodging fire from gigantic cannons and Final Order TIEs. Explosions lit up the sky. Her friends were dying.

"They don’t have long. And you are the one who led them here," Palpatine pointed out.

Tears filled Rey's eyes. The Resistance fighters were losing badly.

The Emperor was manipulating her, yes, but he was doing it with the truth. This was her fault.

“Strike me down. Take the throne. Reign over the new Empire and the fleet will be yours to do as you wish. Only you have the power to save them all. Refuse and your new family dies,” Palpatine threatened.

The consideration came unbidden to her in the deepest recesses in her mind. The possibility of coming from _nothing_ to being an _Empress_. Ruler of an entire galaxy. Would it be so bad? It would save her friends, the galaxy. It would bring peace... no. The Sith's words were lies...but...

“Very well,” Palpatine said impatiently. “Finish them.”

“Wait!” she said. “Wait.”

He paused, thinking she was nearly his like a spider ready to pounce on a fly caught in its web. But unbeknownst to the Emperor, a presence was making itself known to Rey, even through the cloud of darkness, shining bright.

She gazed off into the distance for a moment, probing, all the while shielding her thoughts. She turned back to the Emperor, filling her mind with thoughts of surrender and resignation.

The Emperor smiled indulgently. “Good,” he practically purred. “It is time for a scavenger to rise as an empress. Strike me down and pledge yourself as a Sith!"

***

Ben Solo exited hyperspace and came upon the raging battle between the massive Sith fleet and the hopelessly outmatched Resistance.

He wondered to himself how they had gotten to Exegol. He had destroyed the Wayfinder. He supposed it didn't matter anyway. The Resistance wouldn't last long.

He ducked his TIE low to avoid being caught up in the battle, and gasped when he saw his _Whisper_ parked near the Citadel. 

Rey! It must have been her!

Something tingled at the base of his skull, a familiar awareness...she sensed him too!

Rey understood that he was Ben again. He sensed a wave of relief from her, of joy. Then, abruptly, he sensed nothing.

Rey was in trouble.

Ben, unencumbered by his cape, sprinted at full speed for the monolith, ducked beneath it, and launched himself into the shaft.

Nothing would stop him from reaching her.

Ben caught himself on one of the massive chains dangling from the ceiling and looked down. The floor was so far below him that it seemed to stretch all the way to the core of the planet itself.

It would be too far to climb down quickly, and probably too far to jump down safely.

He had no time for second thoughts. He would find the strength to make everything right, no matter what. Ben Solo called on the Force, and on more than a little bit of his father's recklessness, and he dropped.


	23. Fire in the Sky

**The _Steadfast_ surface. Exegol.**

Finn was almost finished rigging up the nav bunker to explode when he noticed the Destroyer's thrusters begin to glow blue.

<Those thrusters are hot!> called Poe over the comm. He sounded worried. <Finn, buddy, how we doin’?>

Finn would be worried too, but he didn't have time to be worried. He had to finish rigging this thing...

Almost there…Just one more bit of putty… Finn gave Jannah the signal, and as one they ducked, hands over their heads, as Finn triggered the explosion.

_**BOOM!!!** _

His ears rang with the blast, and pressure wave hit his back. Lights across the surface of the _Steadfast_ went dark.

The Final Order Destroyers were vulnerable now, but only for a few minutes. The _Steadfast_ would have to reset its nav systems to regain comms, but it wouldn’t take long. It was up to the Resistance to take advantage at this point.

***

Rose and Chewbacca cheered in celebration as engine lights dimmed all across the fleet.

“Nav beacon’s down!” Poe yelled. “They did it!” He swooped the _Falcon_ toward the _Steadfast_ , catching a glimpse of Finn and Jannah racing toward their orbak mounts, with Artoo at their heels.

<You got three minutes> Finn said, a dot compared to the expanse of the Destroyer. <Until the command ship resets the nav and the fleet can escape.>

<It'd be nice to have more backup to nail those ships...> came Snap Wexley’s pessimistic voice.

"We gotta hit them ourselves, Snap!" Poe replied.

<What can we do against those things?> Wrobie Tyce asked.

“Whatever we can! Be fast, be precise, and hit those cannons. You with me?” Poe called.

<We’re with you,> Tyce responded quickly, without hesitation.

<Right behind you, General,> said Snap with a sigh.

Poe started flicking switches. “All wings, arm torpedoes! Attack formation! May the Force be with us!"

He turned his comm off for a second, yelling back to Rose who was monitoring data on her computer. "Rose! I'm gonna need you in a pod ASAP!"

Rose looked up from her computer with wide eyes and quickly scrambled out of her seat, leaping into a cannon pod as Poe and Chewie led their tiny squadron toward a stalled Destroyer, firing on its vulnerable underbelly cannons.

The Destroyer's hull lit up with explosions as their blasters and photon torpedoes found their marks, knocking out the cannons with pinpoint accuracy.

"That's some awesome shooting there, Rose!" Poe hollered from the pilot's seat to Rose's cannon pod as she took out a couple of stray TIEs that were pursuing the _Falcon_.

Chewie growled his agreement.

"I ran all the sims with my sister," Rose replied. "I trained with her. And when I could, I flew with her."

Poe flinched a little. Rose's sister, Paige Tico, was a bomber that lost her life in an evacuation gone wrong. When the First Order discovered their base on D'Qar after the Resistance victory at Starkiller, they quickly came for vengeance, and with a couple of dreadnoughts to do it.

General Leia only needed his squadron and bomber fleet as a distraction and to lay some cover fire for a quick getaway, but Poe ended up getting overconfident and ended up taking out a dreadnought...at the cost of the entire bomber fleet and most of his squadron. 

He lost his rank, and worse than that, lost Leia's trust in him for a while. He had to prove himself all over again. 

And here he was in command of a fleet again, now in Leia's place.

They knocked out the Order's communications. So far, he hoped Leia's trust in him was well-placed.

Hopefully he doesn't let his people down again.

Poe swallowed. "Paige would be proud."

***

Finn, Jannah, and Artoo raced after the orbak-mounted ground team toward _The Redemption._ Blaster fire erupted all around them.

But then Finn skidded to a halt, realizing that every shot aimed at them was coming from a blaster. The deck cannons had gone silent with the reset.

The gears shifted in his mind. He had a crazy idea, one that might be crazier than the one that landed them on top of a Star Destroyer hundreds of meters up in a lightning filled sky.

Artoo kept flying after the orbaks, but Jannah turned. “Finn! Let’s go!”

“The surface cannons stopped,” Finn yelled to her. “They’re resetting their systems!”

"Yeah? So?” She looked toward _The Redemption_ , and then back at Finn, incredulous.

“So before they do…” Finn stared at the cannon. “I'm thinking we hotwire one of those offline cannons and turn it against the ship."

"That's insane!" Jannah exclaimed. "But we just mounted a ground assault on a Star Destroyer. So..."

"You with me?" Finn asked, almost expecting her to join the others in the waiting _Redemption_.

"Until the end," Jannah replied and together they sprinted for the cannon.

***

Supreme Leader Pryde grimaced as he stared out into the _Steadfast’_ s viewport window, where he saw the Destroyer _Derriphan_ turned into a ball of fire as a few A-wings swooped out of range of the blast they’d created.

There were bound to be Final Order casualties, and at least the pestilent Resistance saved him the trouble of having to take out the incompetent captain of the _Derriphan_ himself.

But still, he hated for these buzzing insects to claim any sort of victory, no matter the insignificance. 

“How much longer?” Pryde demanded to a nearby technician.

“Ships coming back online in just a few seconds, Supreme Leader sir!” said the technician nervously. 

“Then reset the navigation signal!” Pryde roared. “I want the fleet deployed!”

The Resistance had bought themselves so little time, he couldn’t see why they’d bothered. Their mission was futile. Pryde was going to enjoy destroying the last remnant of them, ship by ship, rebel by rebel.

***

Finn and Jannah arrived at the cannon and began circling the weapon cautiously, like it was a wounded animal, ready to attack them at any moment.

“This is the command ship,” Jannah observed. “We take it out now, the whole nav system goes down for good.”

“Every Star Destroyer in this fleet!” Finn nodded exitedly. “All of them without shields! This could end them.”

<Finn! Sir!> came the pilot's voice on the comm just as he began climbing up the cannon. < _The Redemption_ is about to leave, and we're getting word that you and Jannah aren't aboard yet! What are you doing?>

Finn reached the massive gun barrel, “Go without us! We’re taking this whole ship down.”

A long pause.

Jannah whipped up her bow to take out a red jet trooper winging their way, then pivoted quickly and did the same to a ground trooper.

<…What? How?> the pilot demanded.

“You’ll see from _The Redemption!"_ Finn yelled. "Just cover us!"

<You got us this far, sir...I hope you know what you're doing.> the pilot responded.

Finn sighed. "Me too."


	24. The Dyad

**The Sith Eternal Citadel. Exegol**

“The ritual begins!” Palpatine cried out, and the mass of his devoted followers surrounding them responded with a ceremonial chant so loud and deep that the cacophony shook the very ground and resonated within Rey's bones.

"She will strike me down, and pledge herself as a Sith!” The lightning in the cavernous cathedral intensified and reflected against the ghoulish Emperor's milky eyes, as if the ritual itself was producing the effect.

Rey took one step forward. Then another. Thoughts shielded from the Emperor, she sent out her awareness, searching.

There! She just had to stall a little bit longer.

***

The robed cultists of the Sith Eternal had not bothered Ben at all when he was here last as Kylo Ren, but this time they launched themselves at him like rabid attack dogs.

He raced through the Citadel, skidding down the halls, as he blasted them away easily, even hitting a few without looking, a technique his father, of all people, had taught him in his youth. He didn't look back. He had only one all-consuming desire: Help Rey. Get to Rey.

Ben reached the end of the Sith monoliths and rounded a corner. Familiar figures manifested in the flashing dark. His Knights. A knight drew his scythe. Another drew his plasma blaster. And suddenly all six were arrayed before him.

For the briefest moment, Ben actually thought they’d come to help. But he could sense their hatred as they began to surround him like a pack of wolves.

The Knights of Ren, those whom he'd regarded as faithful brothers were raising their weapons for the kill. They had never been his. They had belonged to Palpatine and the Sith Eternal all along.

He could take two or three of the Knights at a time, but he knew how formidable they could actually be. He’d trained with them. They could even touch the Force in a small way.

He didn’t stand a chance against all of them at once, even armed with just a blaster and the Force.

Maybe he should've kept that lightsaber after all...

***

“She will draw her weapon,” the Emperor intoned. Rey made her face a blank mask. She unhooked the Skywalker lightsaber-- _Ben's lightsaber-_ \- from her belt.

“She will come to me!” Palpatine boomed, and the crowd responded with a collective yell as Rey stepped closer still... 

***

Ben blasted one Knight, thrusted away another with the Force, spun to face a third… …as something cracked the back of his skull, sending him to his knees. Another blow slammed into his belly, leaving him doubled over and gasping for air.

The Knights, in their supreme arrogance, backed away, allowed Ben to gain his feet. They were toying with him. He must have seemed defenseless to them without his lightsaber. They must have never really respected him or his abilities to give him ground now. He would make them pay.

Ben sucked in a lungful of air as they circled for another attack.

***

“She will ignite the blade,” Palpatine boomed.

Rey continued to approach. His power was hypnotic. She found herself igniting the lightsaber and raising it, unbidden, against her will. If not for the other presence in her mind, bright and shining with light, Rey would not have been able to resist him.

“And with the stroke of her saber, the Sith are reborn! The Jedi are dead!”

Rey lifted her saber as if to strike—

—and reached for the connection she shared with Ben. Showed him. He acknowledged her, and Rey’s lips parted in surprise at just how different their connection felt.

He came for her, despite everything.

There was no undercurrent of possession or manipulation. She could sense his regret, his determination.

Their connection was… _right_. It was like coming home. 

This is how it should have been all along. The Emperor and Snoke had robbed them of this.

They were going to take it back!

“Do it!” Palpatine screamed. “Make the sacrifice!”

Rey lowered the lightsaber behind her back, as if readying for a massive blow. She reached for the Force. The effort made tears sting in her eyes.

Palpatine leaned forward with gleeful anticipation. Rey raised her hand…which was now empty.

She had projected her weapon away.

Rey watched the Emperor' dawning horror as he finally realized his mistake, allowing Rey and Ben to come together.

Their depths of their bond—forged in the fire of mutual searching, shared grief, rage and hate, but also of compassion, empathy and desire—was the one thing he had not foreseen.

The moment Ben felt the grip of his grandfather Anakin's lightsaber in his palm, he knew it belonged to him. It was his family's legacy, an extension of his true self. He raised it slowly, relishing the feel of the metal, still warm with Rey's touch.

The Knights startled backward a few steps.

"Surprise," he smirked with a half bow before attacking.

Rey grabbed Luke's lightsaber from where she had hooked it to her belt, hidden behind her back. She ignited its emerald blade.

Suddenly, As if on cue, Rey was surrounded by the crimson-clad guards.

They raised their blasters and fired. Rey deflected one blast with her hand and sent it back into one of the guards, while whipping her lightsaber around to block the rest.

She drew on Ben’s strength, and he drew on hers, and just like before, they were separate but also together, Rey battling guards, Ben battling the Knights.

 _Behind you,_ she warned, and he brought up his saber to block his back, whirled, impaled a knight, flipped over his falling body, spun, and did the same to another.

Wasting little time at the bodies of his former comrades, Ben sprinted for the throne room just as Rey used the Force to collapse a guard under his own weight, and then throw him back into the darkness.

She deflected another blaster bolt, dodged another. She spun to face the final guard, but Ben got there first and tossed him aside like a piece of garbage.

They stood facing each other, together at last. As one, they turned to face Palpatine, dropped into fighting stances, raised their lightsabers.

"Is that Luke's?" Ben asked, not taking his eyes off the Emperor.

Rey nodded, sending him her thoughts. "Yes. He wished he turned the saber on _this old corpse_ rather than you."

Ben gritted his teeth. He could sense the truth of Luke's regret from her memory.

Palpatine's games were _over_. The Emperor would turn his family against him no longer, nor use him against his family.

"My _boy_..." Palpatine chuckled, interrupting Ben's thoughts. "Do you think I don’t know what goes on in your head? I have been there your entire life.”

Ben flinched.

"I have been every voice-" Palpatine began, to Ben's horror.

"-you have ever heard-" Palpatine continued, echoing the voice of Snoke.

"-inside your head!" Palpatine concluded using the artificial voice of Darth Vader.

Snoke had been nothing more than a pawn. Palpatine had whispered poison to Ben his whole life. The truth had stunned him, and the Emperor took advantage of Ben's shock by raising his rotting hand, impaling them with the Force.

The Emperor yanked them toward himself, and they slid across the floor, helpless against his power. The pain was breathtaking and they could feel their life being sapped from their bodies, draining them of strength as their lightsabers clattered to the ground.

Palpatine gasped. He stared at his hands, which had begun regenerating, his bones regrowing, pale flesh closing over them.

“You bond...power like _life_ itself,” marvelled Palpatine, his voice tinged with wonder and triumph. “A dyad in the Force!”

All those years, all that searching. He had tried to create a dyad with Vader, as his master Plagueis had tried to create one with him.

Darth Bane's Rule of Two--a Master to always be in desperate search of a yet more powerful apprentice--was a pale imitation, an unworthy but ultimately necessary successor to the older, purer doctrine of the Dyad.

“Your coming together is your undoing,” Palpatine crowed. “And now the power of two restores the one true Emperor!”

He raised his newly healed hands, and called on all the power of the Dark Side of the Force and the Sith Masters who had come before him, and pulled the very life-force from their bodies. It poured from them like a river of light, leaving them weaker and weaker, and Palpatine stronger and stronger.

The Emperor laughed as his body strengthened and became whole once again. The milky film faded from his eyes, revealing golden irises around black pupils, like a solar eclipse.

Rey and Ben lay collapsed on the floor as Emperor Palpatine released himself from his life support machine and drifted down.

He stood straight and strong above them now. Invincible. He had _won_.


	25. The Tables Turn

**Exegol**

The Resistance finally got a break when they knocked out the Final Order communications system, if only for a few minutes. They were determined to take advantage of those few minutes the best they could.

Snap Wexley, whose stepfather was the legendary rebel Wedge Antilles, was determined to do his stepfather proud and take it to the Order, and lit up the underbelly cannons of a Destroyer with blasts from his X-Wing.

But then came the TIEs. Snap managed to fend one off, but he didn't see the one that came out of his blind spot. He only had just enough time to reach down for the tiny holo of his wife that he kept on his dash and whisper, “Karé,” the last thing he saw before everything exploded with unbearable light.

Poe stared in despair as the wreckage of Wexley’s ship peppered down against the Destroyer’s hull. Chewbacca roared in rage at his side.

Cries of terror and despair were lighting up his comm. They were getting torn apart.

<General!> Tyce called. “Do we retreat?”

<What now?> Someone called. “What’s our next move?”

His people—his friends—were dying all around him.

“My friends,” Poe said, his voice tremulous. “I’m sorry. I felt we had…a shot…There’s just too many of them.”

He’d learned nothing from his actions on the _Raddus_. Instead, he’d just gotten people he was supposed to be in charge of killed again. 

A familiar voice broke through on comms: <But there are more of us, Dameron. There are more of us.>

<Hey heyyyyy!> Babu Frik cut in.

<Miss us?> Zorii Bliss added.

It was Lando Calrissian and his crew! 

They had joined them! But had they brought anyone with them? Poe’s heart thundered in his chest as he wheeled the _Falcon_ around and swooped over the hull of a Destroyer to get a visual on the atmosphere above.

<The galaxy heard the call, Dameron,> Lando said. <We all answered it.>

He gasped. Ships of all sorts were popping into sight all over the place, from every era and every sector of the galaxy.

Rebels, scoundrels, pirates, and citizens alike. United as one against the Final Order.

Hundreds. No, _thousands_. A fleet of fleets.

“Look at this!” Poe hollered over Chewbacca's raucous, joyous vocalizations and Rose's cheers from her cannon pod. “Look at this!”

<The allies!> Aftab Ackbar whooped. <They’re here!>

“The whole galaxy’s here!” Poe exclaimed. 

The comms erupted, as ship after ship began calling in. 

< _Twilight Zephyr*_ , standing by for orders.> said Lando.

<Mon Calamari fleet, standing by,> came another voice, and Akbar cheered in pride as his brethren made themselves heard.

<Phantom Squadron, standing by.>

< _Ghost_ , standing by.>

< _Anodyne Two_ , standing by.>

< _Alphabet Two,_ standing by.>

<Zay Versio with Inferno Squad, standing by.>

They had done it. The spark of the Resistance had become a fire. And that fire was going to burn the Final Order down.

There were so many voices that Poe had to cut in.

“Alright folks!” Poe ordered, "Hit those underbelly cannons with all you’ve got! Every one we knock out is a world saved.”

Poe, Chewbacca, and Rose led the charge in the _Millennium Falcon_ , and a thousand fighters, frigates, and even well-armed freighters swooped after them. 

<Nice flying, Dameron!> came Wedge Antilles’s voice, the old Rebellion captain, and Poe's former flight instructor, once again in the pilot's seat of an X-wing. 

With a pang of sadness, Poe thought of Snap. He wished Snap were alive to see this, and to see his stepfather fly again.

From his vantage on the surface of the _Steadfast_ , Finn threw his fist into the air. "I knew Lando would come back! I knew it!”

Jannah was gaping at the sky, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be laying cover fire.

People had come from everywhere to help them. The whole galaxy was here. Finn watched as they swooped among the Destroyers, laying waste to the hapless ships.

With a huge grin on his face, Finn got back to work on hotwiring the cannon while Jannah resumed firing.

***

Pryde watched in dismay as the Exegol sky filled with swarms of ships and fighters of all kinds.

For this, Pryde had no backup plan. “Where did they get all these fighter craft?” Supreme Leader Pryde demanded.

“They have no navy.” Admiral Griss gaped, the color draining from his dark face. “It’s just…people.”

***

The tide was turning. Poe’s patchwork navy pummeled the defenseless fleet.

One Destroyer listed sideways, smoke rising from its hull. It collided with another, and both dropped to the surface, helpless in Exegol’s gravity.

Another fell after a pair of proton torpedoes hit it in the gut. Soon Destroyers were dropping like flies all over the place.

But the TIEs remained viciously relentless, and they were still targeting the _Millennium Falcon_ specifically. He was right about the _Falcon_ being a recognisable target. Sometimes he hated being right.

One TIE threatened him head-on, but he was hemmed in between hulls. He gunned the accelerator, firing. Poe wasn’t sure if he’d destroy it in time, or if he should wing away…

Then from above the _Falcon_ a ship fired at the TIE, exploding it into a fireball.

He turned in his cockpit as the ship screamed past, taking out another TIE.

“The _Ghost_!” he exclaimed. He only ever heard about it. To see it in person...this day just kept getting better and better.

**Sith Eternal Citadel. Exegol.**

The Emperor raised his voice to the seething throng of his followers.

“Look what you have made" he exclaimed proudly. Their chanted response was thunderous, and he stood, hands slightly raised, basking in their worship.

Ben forced his near-lifeless body over onto his hands and knees. Rey remained limp beside him as he struggled to his feet and faced his lifelong tormentor.

Palpatine sneered at his efforts.

"As once I fell, so falls the last Skywalker!” Palpatine hissed as he lifted Ben with no more than a thought, and thrust him away with such force that Ben tumbled end over end through the length of the amphitheater to a flashing abyss. He almost fell in, but he managed to grasp the maw of the pit, using the last of his strength to pull himself up and over before passing out to the sound of the Emperor's laughter.

“Do not fear their feeble attack, my faithful!” the Emperor said, Ben already forgotten.

His lips spread apart into a wide smile, and he lifted his restored face to Exegol’s stormy sky. “Nothing will stop the return of the Sith!”

He raised his hands as though reaching toward the battle overhead.

Even through her haze of weakness and exhaustion, Rey could sense him draw on the Force. The Emperor’s power was staggering now. No, their power. Hers and Ben’s.

Hot tears streamed down Rey's face as Palpatine used their stolen power to create a conduit of Force lightning as tendrils of raw power shot from his fingers and coalesced into a thick stream of light that burst into the Exegol sky, flooding the Resistance ships. They sparked helplessly against the onslaught of energy, tilting on their axis.

This day just kept getting worse and worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shout out to Vespaer and her amazing fic The Machine!


	26. Rise!

The Resistance watched in horror as raw power shot up from the planet like a volcano eruption, devouring everything in its path.

Several fighters were suddenly adrift, their controls no longer responding.

The _Tantive IV_ trembled, as if fighting a magnetic pull. It listed to the side like a capsizing ocean liner, and then began to drop like a great durasteel meteor, past the swarm of ships and out of sight.

Nien Nunb was on that ship. He'd known him his whole life. Poe had just lost a lot of friends.

Suddenly, the console of the _Millennium Falcon_ was sparking. Chewbacca roared in rage, and Rose scrambled to her computer to see where the surge was coming from, only to see a blank screen.

"Dammit! BB8!" Poe yelled to his orange and white astromech. "I need you to keep this bird in the air as long as you can!"

The droid whistled a panicked reply, and rolled hurriedly to the back.

Poe punched his comm. “Does anyone copy?” No response. Beside them, a sleek, chrome Nubian yacht trembled in the throes of the wicked lightning, and then dropped out of view beneath the clouds.

***

**The Sith Eternal Citadel. Exegol.**

The Emperor would not stop laughing as he took his throne, lightning still shooting upward from his fingertips.

Rey was near death; she knew it with certainty. She didn’t want the Emperor's mad laugh to be the last thing she heard.

She hardly had the strength to move, but she managed to roll over onto her back, her vision blackening with the effort.

Rey reached for Ben through the Bond. He was barely hanging on, his light flickering like a candle in the wind. She was glad he was at least here at the end. 

Rey’s limbs refused any order to move, much less stand, so she stared at the battle above. Not that it was much of a battle anymore. Explosions peppered the sky. Black debris rained down everywhere, trailing smoke and fire. The _Tantive IV_ listed, then plummeted. She had failed so utterly.

***

His whole life had been a lie. He'd been nothing but a tool for a silver-tounged, shadowy manipulator.

His family sacrificed so much to bring him to the Light. 

His father reached out to him, only to fall by his blade.

His uncle tried to get through to his blind rage, even if it was a Force projection to buy time for the Resistance to escape.

And his mother spent her very last moments, her very last bit of energy to reach him, to tell him that she missed him, that she loved him, that she forgave him for everything.

Even Rey never gave up on him when he gave her every reason too. He could feel her reaching out to him with the last bit of strength she had left, if only to offer him just a little bit of comfort.

And their sacrifices were now proving to be in vain.

At least his grandfather in the last act of his redemption was able to gain a measure of revenge and take out Palpatine before he died, however long that lasted.

His last act was to die like a dog. He failed so utterly.

***

And then they heard them.

The Force opened to them as their consciences passed between the boundaries of life and death, the place between places, the World between Worlds.

Presences filled their awareness, some ancient, some recent, some still anchored to the living.

_Bring back the balance_

_In the night, find the light_

_Alone, never have you been._

_The Force surrounds you. Let it guide you. As it guided us._

_We stand behind you. Rise in the Force._

The voices were becoming louder, even more powerful, as did the strength flooding barely-living bodies, revitalizing them.

 _Rise_.

 _Rise_!

Rey rose. Weak at first, and then with more strength as she found her feet and summoned Luke's lightsaber to her hand.

The Emperor gasped. The eruption of light from his fingertips ceased. He rose from his throne and stepped forward. His eyes glowed with lingering power.

“Let your death be the final word in the story of rebellion.” Palpatine reached with his arms, sent Force lightning zig-zagging toward Rey.

She whipped up her lightsaber and blocked it. The impact nearly knocked her from her feet, but she reached for the Force, and stood her ground.

“You are nothing!” The Emperor snapped as his attack intensified. “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Sith!”

“And I...” Ben said, at his feet, activating his lightsaber. “...am so damn _tired_ of hearing your voice!”

"WHAT?" Palpatine roared. He sent a wave of lightning to Ben, who too blocked it with his lightsaber, calling upon the Force as he stepped forward against the onslaught to join Rey's side, together as one.

"Our coming together is _your_ undoing!" snarled Ben.

"We are o _ne_ with the Force," Rey added, their bodies aglow with the Force energy of their Bond, their Dyad.

"And the Force is with them," came a voice.

It was Ben's grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, Vader redeemed, his ghostly form materializing from their light, a hand on his grandson's broad shoulder.

"Always," said the spirit of the Tortrugan Ahsoka Tano, her hand on Rey's shoulder. 

"You?!" cried Palpatine in dismay.

"Strike them down," said Obi-Wan Kenobi, beside Anakin. "And they will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

"No! No! Nooo!" roared Palpatine as a pantheon of his past enemies joined the five.

The wise and diminutive Master Yoda.

The powerful Mace Windu.

The maverick Qui-Gon Jinn.

The blind rebel, Kanan Jarrus.

And then Luke Skywalker, his hands on the shoulders of his nephew Ben and his padawan Rey, estranged no more.

"NOOO!!" screamed the Emperor.

The lightning began to feed back on the Emperor. It ravaged his face, and he tossed back his head in agony, and in denial of what was happening.

"POWER!!" Palpatine roared, sending even more lightning at the pair and the Jedi spirits despite the damage it was doing to him. 

With the Jedi past at their side, Rey and Ben pursued mercilessly, one foot in front of the other, absorbing power from the Force.

"We passed on all we know," Luke said over Palpatine's screams.

Finally, they were ready. They gathered their combined strength, and the strength of the Jedi past, and they thrust it all at the Emperor.

"UNLIMITED POWER!!!" were Sheev Palpatine's last words, and he staggered backward, his own power reflected against him. It devoured him completely, ripping away his newly healed fingers, searing away the skin of his face, his very bones, until he disintegrated.

Like a collapsing star, what remained of the Emperor coalesced into a single point, which then exploded with a massive shock wave that threw Rey and Ben to the ground. The Sith throne shattered. The ceiling bouldered down around them, crushing thousands of disciples in the amphitheater, but not them, for the spirits of the Jedi surrounded them, shielding them with the last of their Force energy.

"A thousand generations live in you now," was Luke's final words to them, and then all was silent.


	27. The Final Fall of the First Order

The _Millennium Falcon_ 's nav screen cleared suddenly. Poe looked around.

The strange power coming from the planet’s surface had ceased, for however long. He could only imagine what was. He'd heard legends of the Sith producing lightning from their hands, but he couldn't imagine any mortal being producing power on that scale.

But then again, The Emperor did come back after thirty years... 

Poe shuddered. He shook it off. He still had a job to do.

“We’re back on!” he yelled to whoever was still there. “This is our last chance. We’ve got to hit those cannons now!”

He and Chewie winged toward a Destroyer, aiming for the belly cannon. Thousands of ships corrected, some even lurched out of free fall, as everyone brought their weapons to bear. They all understood what he did: the impasse might be temporary. They might have only seconds to act.

***

The red jetpack troopers were not letting up. Jannah was doing a great job of keeping them off his back, but Finn couldn’t help getting distracted. Getting shot at usually did that to you. 

Focus, Finn. One more splice…there.

“Okay, we’re hot!” he yelled to Jannah.

He jumped down from the cannon, yanking a handful of wires with him. Hopefully he had the right ones. He handed two of the wires to Jannah. He would aim the cannon; she would fire it. Finn touched his wires together, and the giant cannon barrel swiveled until it was pointed directly at the deck.

Finn looked up at Jannah one more time. This was it. They weren’t coming back from this one.

“Never another kid,” he said. "Never another family torn apart."

“Not even one,” she agreed. And with that, she touched her wires together.

The wires sparked, and a split second later the cannon fired a massive energy blast.

Finn and Jannah waited, breathed. And then the hull came apart beneath them.

***

Pryde stared out of the _Steadfast'_ s viewport in frozen disbelief as the bridge floor shuddered beneath him, ignoring the panic of Admiral Griss and his officers.

“Comms are down everywhere!” one yelled.

“There are attacks on Destroyers in all occupied systems,” said another bridge officer. “Overwhelming numbers of small craft!”

Fruitless panic. The end was nigh.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn't be possible. His Emperor had foreseen everything. .

In his last moment, Supreme Leader Pryde finally understood that the return of Emperor Palpatine was meaningless if he were not alive to see it, and that perhaps his beloved Emperor wouldn't return the Empire to its former glory.

His title of Supreme Leader of the Final Order. Worthless.

All his efforts, his sacrifices had not been worth it. The bridge exploded. Pryde fell.

***

Finn and Jannah clung to the hull together, ducking as flaming debris from the bridge tumbled past them. They couldn’t hold on much longer. They’d lose their grip and fall helplessly to the planet’s surface—if the _Steadfast_ didn’t come apart under them first.

He looked to Jannah. He wished Rose could have been with him at the end, but he was glad that he at least had a sister-in-arms at his side. Two former stormtroopers, doing the right thing in the end.

She smiled sadly back at him. They had no regrets. It had been worth it.

***

Someone tried to patch through to Poe from below, and he flipped his frequency to take the comm.

<Finn and Jannah didn’t board _The Redemption_ ,> came the pilot's voice.

"What?" yelled Rose from behind Poe and Chewbacca, practically slamming into their pilot's seats.

<They’re still on the command ship!> the pilot explained. <We were laying cover but we got caught up in the electrical anomaly!>

All his relief at getting the fleet back online ebbed away. He could not lose Finn. Not Jannah. Not another soul. He would not.

He peeled the _Falcon_ away from the attack and dove for the _Steadfast_.

The command ship was now pointed tip-downward, ready to spear the planet’s surface.

Despite his overwhelming fear and worry, he was extremely proud of his crazy, reckless buddy. Scanners were near-useless in this atmosphere, so he could only do visual sweeps. There was a good chance the bridge explosion had taken the two with it.

But they wouldn’t give up, not until they had to. They had just lost the _Tantive IV_ and everyone on it. Not to mention the countless other fighters under Poe's command.

Poe needed to save as many of his people as he could. Chewbacca had lost too many loved ones in his near three hundred years. And Rose, she had to say goodbye to a sister not too long ago. She was not ready to say goodbye to Finn. Not now. Not ever.

The _Falcon_ buzzed by a comm tower, now thrusting parallel to the ground, and Poe almost missed the two figures huddling together on top of it.

“I see them!” he said as Rose white-knuckled the back of his chair. “Hold on, Chewie!”

The _Falcon_ meteored toward the Star Destroyer, then angled to come up from below.

***

Finn almost lost his grip when he saw the _Falcon’s_ hull rise below him.

“Jannah!” he yelled, surging with hope.

“I know!” she replied.

They would have to time this just right. They’d have a few steps of running room along the side of the comm tower, and then nothing but air.

Finn and Jannah gripped hands. They couldn't leap just yet…almost...Now! They took off running as Poe guided the hull closer.

With all their might, they leapt…just as the _Steadfast_ finally succumbed to gravity and its internal combustion and dropped toward oblivion.

They landed hard on the _Falcon’s_ hull; Finn’s ankle twisted. A hatch opened revealing Chewbacca, who waved at them to hurry. They sprinted across the top of the _Falcon_ , Finn’s ankle screaming in pain with each step, and finally dropped into the hold.

“Chewie, you got them?!” Poe hollered from the cockpit. Chewie roared confirmation, and then Rose barreled into him, tears streaming from her eyes, slamming him into the wall. 

She gave him a hard, wet kiss, and to his surprise, slapped him hard in the shoulder.

"YOU DUMMY!" she roared. "YOU ALMOST GOT YOURSELF KILLED! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"

Finn smiled. "I was saving what I loved."

Rose shook her head and she stroked his cheek and smiled back.

"You dummy," she murmured affectionately, and she kissed him again.

Rose smiled at the patiently waiting Jannah, and together they slung Finn's arms over their shoulders and guided him to the cockpit as the _Millennium Falcon_ sped away.


	28. The Belonging You Seek

**The Sith Eternal Citadel. Exegol.**

Ben awoke first. The first thing he noticed was the relative quiet in the demolished Citadel. There was no whispers in the deepest recesses of his mind. No cackling or monologuing from the Emperor. No chants or cheers from the Sith Eternal. 

He just heard the ubiquitous thunder of Exegol's stormy atmosphere. The discharge of blaster fire. The screeches of fleeing TIEs. The distant crashes of falling Star Destroyers.

He opened his eyes, and saw the flashing lightning and blaster fire, the traffic of the last moments of Exegol's battle high up in the sky.

Ben sat up with a groan. He was beyond exhausted and his body was battered, bruised and sore, with broken ribs from when the Emperor tried to toss him in the pit. He looked around, searching for Rey amongst the rubble.

He saw Rey's body a length away and thought the worst.

His exhaustion and physical pain all but forgotten from worry for her , Ben crawled over to her and gathered her in his arms and pulled her close, nestling her head in the crease of his elbow.

Ben searched their Bond through the Force. Her Force signature was bright. Vibrant. She was warm. Her chest rose and fall with steady slumber.

She was alive! 

He held here there still for a few minutes, watching her sleep, his mind going back to their first meeting on Takodana when he put her in a Force stasis and carried her to his ship in his search for Luke Skywalker's map. That felt like a lifetime ago.

How much have they grown in a year's time! They had gone from prisoner and captor, to Light and Dark duelists, to being unwitting and unwilling bondmates. 

A quiet, open, intimate moment of empathy changed all that for them. They had _seen_ each other. He would never forget how she came to him after touching his soul for just one time. How they fought together then, and despite their differences, despite being on opposite sides of the Force, on opposite sides of a war, and still, after everything, found their way back to each other and fought as one together again. 

Her eyes blinked awake, once, twice, three times, before focusing on his attentive eyes. Again, like Starkiller before, she woke up to the sight of his face, but this time it was to his real face, not a mask.

Rey too, was maskless. For on her face she wore not a mask of defiance or anger like back then, but a smile. A genuine smile that reached her eyes and lit up her cheeks. 

Rey sat up in his lap and gasped his name as her hand reached up to cup his cheek. Ben leaned into the gesture.

“Rey...” Ben smiled broadly back at her, showing perfect white teeth, an expression Rey had never seen from him before. "We won."

" _We_ won," Rey breathed, glancing down at his smiling lips before meeting his eyes again. " _We..."_

The gap closed between them as their lips came together in a much longed for kiss. One that felt familiar and right. As their lips met, the Force opened to them once more, and a flood of memories passed between the two... 

_When the Phantom Emperor Palpatine infected Ben Solo, the last scion of the Chosen One, with his darkness, he unwittingly sowed the seeds of his downfall. The Force would create his equal, his, opposite, his balance..._

_He was ten. As the protocol droid tucked him to bed and he closed his eyes, Ben lay in bed, waiting for the nightmare that had visited him every night since he could remember._ _But on that night, it never came. Instead he felt a warm presence in the Force. New life. Innocent. Pure. A life that he would come to know in years time..._

_Years later, Rey was much the same age, a little older perhaps. When that boy became a man and fell to the Dark Side to become Kylo Ren, she felt a cold chill in the hot Jakku desert. An odd feeling. Sad. Angry. Confused. Like herself..._

_"I'll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise." As in her dreams she heard no reply. She had seen this man before, in a day dream. In a nightmare._

_Rey was restrained on an interrogation slab on Starkiller Base...Kylo Ren nearly touched her face...they're both surprised: they reacted to a feeling that passed between them--an energy they recognized in each other...._

_When Supreme Leader Snoke strengthened the Bond of his dark apprentice Kylo Ren and the fledgling Jedi padawan Rey, he unwittingly sharpened the blade that would not only cut his strings, but ultimately the strings of his puppet master, the ever-strengthening Emperor Palpatine..._

_In a development unforeseen, the Dark came to the Light in a moment of despair, offering comfort and empathy..._

_"I never felt so alone," Rey sobbed._

" _You're not alone." Kylo assured._

_"Neither are you." Rey replied._

_They sat facing each_ _other in the firefight, hands outstretched, ready to touch..._

Their lips parted. They looked at each other in wonder. They let truth of their Bond wash over them. They were a _Dyad_. They have never been alone. They have always been connected, all the way from the moment she was _born_. And they always will be, from now and forever, to when they took their last breaths in the living world and beyond when the Force reclaimed them.

A tear traveled down Rey's cheek and Ben intercepted it, wiping it away with his finger.

"I love you," Rey murmured, staring deep into Ben's dark eyes.

Ben gasped. Three simple words have never been so profound to Ben. He hadn't heard them spoken in years. The idea of it. Rey loving him. Rey desiring him. Rey waiting for him to speak, her vulnerability and _need_ for him to say something, _anything_ , to show her that he felt the same way. 

He did. So much so that he wasn't sure how to articulate them. All Ben could say in response were words that were as equally profound as hers, to him at least, because at one time he didn't feel capable of speaking them, let alone _feeling_ them.

"I love you too."

Their lips met again, each kiss more intense and hungry than the last. His hands traveled to every part of her body he could reach, committing her curves to memory. Her hands combed through his hair, bunching it, her hips moved on their own--

Their passion was interrupted by a deep rumbling and crashing that shook the floor. They turned their heads and looked up through the open ceiling. The Final Order ships were falling from the sky, their command ship destroyed, leaving them easy pickings for the Resistance fleet as they were unable to leave the atmosphere.

“Ben, we have to get out of here. This place is about to collapse. It isn't safe," Rey said, reluctantly pulling herself away from him as they watched the ships tumble out of the sky.

Ben met her eyes and nodded once in understanding.

"Well have to take the _Whisper._ Together," Ben replied. "It's faster and more durable than a standard TIE, and it still has the Wayfinder to navigate us out of here."

"Ben, it only has one seat," Rey pointed out.

Ben grinned. "Oh, I know...I think we'll make it work."

Rey gasped and then grinned back. 

Rey stood on her knees and positioned herself under his left shoulder, supporting him. Ben slung an arm around her shoulders as she wrapped an arm around his waist. With a grunt of effort they stood to a standing position and began to trudge forward.

With the exhilaration of passion behind them in the face of danger, Rey and Ben were reminded of just how beat up they really were as they held each other up and guided themselves out of the ruins. They were exhausted by the battle, and even with the eleventh hour rejuvenation by the Force, they were still weak and with the ships a substantial distance away, they couldn't afford any further delay. They had to hurry.

“C’mon," Rey urged. "Let’s get out of here.”


	29. Celebration

**Resistance Base. Ajan Kloss**

Kaydel Ko Connix hated being cooped up at the base when so many of her friends and fellow Resistance were out there fighting the good fight, but it was her job to oversee the call for help out to the galaxy and to coordinate the reinforcements as they came. She spent several tense hours sending transmissions, receiving transmissions, not knowing if her friends and loved ones were coming back.

So when they popped out of hyperspace and the _Millennium Falcon_ touched down on the jungle floor, Connix ran straight into Poe's arms for a celebratory kiss as Rose and Jannah helped a limping Finn down and Chewbacca conversed with a beeping BB8.

"We won!" exclaimed Poe happily as their lips parted.

"And that's not all!" Connix celebrated. "It's happening all over the galaxy! There's destroyers going down everywhere!

They looked to the Ajan Kloss sky, which was seeing a lot more traffic than it had previously, even when they were departing for Exegol.

Most of their ally ships had returned to their own systems and planets from all over the galaxy, but a few had decided to follow the surviving Resistance ships home. Their base was going to be fuller and busier than ever. The more the merrier.

Everyone around them was reuniting: Threepio greeted Artoo as he rolled proudly out of the _Redemption;_ the former stormtroopers celebrated their successful rebellion against the Order that had conscripted them; Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca exchanged a hug after almost two decades apart; Commander D’Acy and Tyce hugged and then indulged in a long kiss. Even the orbaks were celebrating, tossing their manes and stomping on cue for the Riders in exchange for treats.

Poe was happy, but he had a nagging worry in the back of his head, and Connix sensed his discomfort.

“General Leia thought they’d destroyed the Emperor at the Battle of Endor,” Poe admitted after some prodding. “But he came back. More powerful than ever.”

“You think he might come back again,” Connix deduced. Of course Poe would worry about that. He was a general now, and like any good general he was anticipating what fight still lay ahead.

“Maybe,” Poe said, staring off in Finn's direction as his fellow former stormtroopers clapped his back and laughed with him. “Or some other evil will rise. Evil always rises.”

“Maybe, it will” replied Connix. “But not for a long time, anyway.”

Poe gave her a questioning look.

“Don’t get me wrong, what General Leia did back then was incredible,” Connix explained. “Heroic and brave. But it was just one small group against incredible odds.”

Poe began to smile. “We’re not just one small group,” he said, understanding. “The Resistance is millions of people, a thousand places.”

“General Leia united a whole galaxy. This time, it’s for real," Connix assured.

Poe’s grin became huge, and they exchanged another kiss as Threepio and Artoo were coming toward them.

“Did you hear that?” Threepio asked, looking toward the sky, hiss audioreceptors picking up a dreadfully familiar whine.

"It's Kylo Ren!" shouted some battle weary Resistance survivors as the former Supreme Leader's TIE _Whisper_ touched down on Ajan Kloss' jungle floor.

"Relax! Relax!" Poe ordered. "It's just Rey! It's gotta be."

The cockpit of the _Whisper_ opened, and Rey climbed out, with Ben gingerly following suit close behind her.

"It's Kylo Ren!" the survivors exclaimed once more, raising their blasters. Rey quickly stood in front of him, reaching behind her and grasping his hand.

"Kylo Ren is dead!" shouted Rey. "The man you see before you is named Ben. Solo. General Leia's _son._ "

Rey searched the eyes of the shocked Resistance. For Finn's eyes. For Poe and Rose's. Chewie's.

"And I love him."

The Resistance roared in chaos and confusion, and Ben squeezed Rey's hand.

Chewbacca stepped forward, and raised his great hairy arm up to silence the clamor of the Resistance.

Rey glanced at Ben. He nodded, letting go of her hand, stepping forward to meet Chewie.

A tall man himself, Ben still had to look up to the massive Wookie that he once considered family, and, with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat, a being he hoped would consider him family again.

The silence seemed to stretch on for hours as the two bore into each other's eyes, and suddenly Chewie drew Ben into a tight embrace. Ben dug his hands into the Wookie's fur, breaking down and sobbing freely into his uncle's wide chest.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he sobbed, the repressed emotion coming out in waves as he screamed into Chewie's fur.

"Hey there, Lil' Starfighter," Lando said, emerging from the crowd, slowly walking towards the pair.

"Unca Wanwo," croaked Ben, and Lando joined them, their disparate family finally reunited.

Rey watched them, her heart full. 

Finn approached Rey, and she braced herself for his rejection. She understood. Ben had nearly sliced him half not too long ago. 

"Finn, I--" and he hugged her without a word of condemnation. She held him tight, and he held her, overjoyed for the other to be safe and alive.

Poe and Rose looked at each other. They had their own reasons for distrusting or outright hating Ben. But they too embraced Rey.

After a few minutes, Finn walked over to Ben. Rey held her breath. Their last face-to-face encounter wasn't exactly a friendly one.

"Thank you," Finn offered his hand to Ben, to the surprise of everyone, Ben especially.

Ben eyed Finn's hand suspiciously, but took it nevertheless.

"For what?" Ben asked.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Finn asked. "The holodisk."

Ben considered. He never thought about it. He only ever meant to use it as bait to get Rey out into the open, when he was hunting her as Kylo Ren. It didn't matter to him if and how much they benefited from it. He didn't think they'd get that far. But as he thought about it, perhaps a part of him subconsciously meant to help Rey in whatever way he could, even if it helped her friends.

"Everything I did," Ben replied truthfully. "I did for Rey."

The answer seemed to satisfy Finn. He took his hand back and wiped it on his vest like he touched something dirty.

"Don't get me wrong," Finn grinned. "I'll never like you. But Rey loves you. I hate it. I don't understand it. But if she could see something in a stormtrooper like me...then I guess I'm gonna have to live with it."

Ben grinned back. "Fine by me. Finn."

As Finn walked away, Poe strode up to Ben, his jaw tight, arms folded.

"So who speaks first, Dameron?" Ben snarked.

A ghost of a smile flitted across Poe's face. "It wasn't too long ago I would of had you court marshalled and executed if I ever got you in my custody."

"Is that so?" Ben challenged.

"Yeah. Yeah it is," Poe stood inches from Ben now. "I just got done saying goodbye to a lot of loved ones today."

"What's your point?" Ben growled.

"I've had enough death. I'm not going to be responsible for another one. As far as I'm concerned Kylo Ren is dead," Poe gritted out.

Ben nodded. 

"I don't care what you do from here on out," Poe turned on his heels and walked away into the crowd. "Just stay outta my way."

Poe stopped. Turned. Gestured towards the cluster of tents surrounding their makeshift base. "Your mother's quarters are down there. Rey knows the way."

Poe walked away to rejoin the renewing celebration, leaving Ben in solemn silence.

Rey took Ben's hand, and together they set off to say a final goodbye to those who gave their lives to bring him to the Light and to bring the Light to the entire galaxy.


	30. The Story Lives Forever

The question on everyone's minds after the victory on Exegol was "what now?"

What would they do for government?

The First Order had eradicated most of the New Republic when they unleashed the Starkiller Base upon the Hosnian system. Before the Battle of Exegol, the Final Order destroyed Chandrila, where many of remaining politicians and diplomats went.

It was spoken that the Rebel Alliance was originally formed by a core group of Senators who had opposed Palpatine's takeover as Emperor.

By the end of the Emperor's reign during the end of the Galactic Civil War however, many of those opposing Senators had died off and those that remained had grown fat and happy off the Empire.

In the following thirty years, many of them remained fat and happy off of many of the still existing policies, and were reluctant to give up their spoils, even when the spectre of the Empire's successor, the First Order, made itself known.

Governance of the galaxy had become less of an ideal of law and order and more of a way to get wealthy and stay wealthy. As evidenced by the resort planet of Canto Bight, alliances shifted depending on how deep your pockets were.

But the Resistance had grown into a melting pot of the galaxy, represented by dozens of species, with dozens more supporting planets. 

The Resistance became less of a military force and more of an idea. An idea that spread like wildfire throughout the galaxy.

The downtrodden, the oppressed and mistreated began to rise. They began to _resist_.

Freedom, peace, and equality was their credo. And they would fight for it.

It would take time, yes, but the galaxy would rebuild. 

Together.

***

Some, like Finn weren't so much interested in the affairs of politics as much as he was interested in simply finding out who he was, what his place in the galaxy was, and helping others find the answers to the same questions.

As it turned out, Lando Calrissian had Babu Frik upload the entire stormtrooper dossier into their database, and they were able to map out the origins of those recorded stormtroopers across the entire galaxy. Babu had also used the algorithm of the dossier to hack into the mainframe of the main database to further update the dossier.

They had a profile of virtually every stormtrooper in the galaxy. Lando was closer than he ever was to finding his daughter.

A galaxy wide transmission across the holonet was sent out. The true depths of the First Order's crimes were revealed. With the promise of identity and knowledge a possibility, the troopers that remained rebelled against their mental conditioning and the small pockets of the Order that still infested the galaxy, across the occupied planets that couldn't fight off the Order following the Battle of Exegol. 

The galaxy struck the mortal wound, the Order itself would finish itself off from the inside.

And Finn would be there as a symbol of hope, a guiding light to shine the way home for the lost stormtroopers. There was a hope for life after the Order. There was a family out there waiting for you.

And if they had nowhere to go, Finn welcomed them as family, just as Rose, Poe, Rey, Jannah and her riders did.

It was the right thing to do.

***

**Naboo.**

The _Millennium Falcon_ touched down at a busy spaceport on the planet of Naboo.

Ben Solo stepped out of his father's freighter and inhaled the very same warm sweet air that his ancestors did. For if Mustafar was a pilgrimage to his grandfather's past, Naboo was a pilgrimage to his grandmother's.

Ben still favored black, wearing black trousers, boots, and leather jacket, but offset it with an off-white undershirt that had belonged to his father. A blaster, which was a gift from his Uncle Lando, sat holstered at his side. A newly constructed lightsaber was sheathed at his back. 

His face may have had a strong resemblance to the former Supreme Leader of the First Order, but the following months had transformed him. Color had tanned his once pale skin. His once blank scowl had been replaced by an ever-present grin. Kylo's vengeful glare had lightened to a wiser, kinder, but no less intense gaze.

In his hands he carried a small, silver durasteel box.

Rey emerged from the _Falcon_ , her eyes alight with wonder at Naboo's bright baby blue sky and ornate architecture. Today she traded her Jedi garb in favor of a travel outfit similar to the one she wore to Ahch-To, her finished collapsible lightsaber at her hip.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded to her, and they set off after their destination.

***

After a brief tour of Ben's beautiful ancestral planet, the pair arrived before a meticulously maintained statue with a fountain base and a flower garden.

"Padme Amidala," Ben said in awe. "Elected queen at fourteen. United the Naboo with the Gungans. A senator. A freedom fighter. My grandmother."

"Sounds a lot like Leia," Rey smiled. 

"Yes," Ben's gaze fell to the stonework at the fountain's base.

By virtue of being Padme's grandson, the current queen of Naboo granted Ben this one request.

He searched for a weak rock in the stonework, and pulled it out with the Force.

He then looked to the box he was carrying. He opened it.

Inside were Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber and Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, wrapped in leather. Han Solo's medal lay beside them, folded neatly. He could still feel his mother's lingering touch on the cool face of his father's medal as he caressed it one last time.

"At last...our family can rest in peace," Ben said as he sealed the box and carefully pushed it into the hole he made at the base of the fountain.

He stood up and took Rey's hand. After a moment of reverence, they departed.

***

Ben and walked together for a while before stopping at a flowered terrace overlooking one of Naboo's pristine lakes.

"It's beautiful," Rey gasped.

"It's where my grandparents were married in secret at the start of the Clone Wars," Ben replied, staring out into the water. Ben took a deep breath and lightly turned her cheek towards him. "And I was hoping we could too."

"What?"

Ben took a knee and pulled a ring out of his pocket.

It was his mother's binary star ring.

"Two suns, intrinsically bound. Like us," Ben looked up into her eyes. "Rey Nobody...will you do me the honor and become Rey Solo? Will you marry me?"

"Rey Solo...Rey _Solo..."_ , Rey toyed with the sound of the words in her mouth.

"I mean, if you would prefer Rey _Skywalker_ or something like that..." Ben quipped.

Rey chuckled, and took his face in her hands. "Suppose I marry you, Mr. Solo...what would we do?"

"I was thinking of an extended honeymoon," Ben grinned.

" _Hmmm_ ," purred Rey.

"...and after that: kids. Lots and lots of kids," Ben smiled, a sparkle in his eye.

"Oh?" Rey was intrigued, and cocked a curious eyebrow.

"Our kids. Lost kids. Lonely kids," Ben said thoughtfully. "Give them a home. Give them love. Teach them the ways of the Force."

"A new Jedi Order?" Rey gasped.

"Something like that...with a bit more of a _balanced_ approach. An approach that doesn't fear the Dark as its predecessors did," Ben replied.

Rey considered. She was enjoying his anticipation, even though he already knew what her answer would be. It was written all over her face.

"Well...?" Ben said a little impatiently.

Rey guided him to his feet. Kissed him again and again, a kiss for every word. "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you, Ben Solo. A thousand times yes."

Ben smiled his broadest smile yet, and together, Rey and Ben Solo stared out into the bright Naboo sky, full of hope, adventure, and love.

Two bodies. One soul. A belonging found.


End file.
